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The International Theological Library

ARRANGEMENT OF VOLUMES AND AUTHORS

THEOLOGICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. By Charles A. Briggs, D.D., D.Litt.,
Graduate Professor of Theological Encyclopedia and Symbolics', Union
Theological Seminary, New York.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTA-
MENT. By S. R. Driver, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Professor of Hebrew
and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. {Revised and Enlarged Edition.

CANON AND TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By FRANCIS

Crawford Burkitt, M.A., Norrisian Professor of Divinity, University
of Cambridge.

OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. By Henry Preserved Smith, D.D ,
sometime Professor of Biblical History, Amherst College, Mass.

\Noiv Ready.

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By

Francis Brown, D.D., LL.D., D.Litt., Professor of Hebrew, Union
Theological Seminary, New York.

THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By A. B. Davidson,
D.D., LL.D., sometime Professor of Hebrew, New College, Edinburgh.

\_Aroiu Ready,

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF THE NEWTESTA*
MENT. By Rev. James Moffatt, B.D., Minister United Free Church
Dundonald, Scotland.

CANON AND TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By CASPAR RENE

Gregory, D.D., LL.D., Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the
University of Leipzig. ^Now Rmdy^

THE LIFE OF CHRIST. By WlLLIAM Sanday, D.D., LL.D. Lady
Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.'

A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE By

Arthur C. McGiffert, D.D., Professor of Church Plistory, Union Theo-
logical Seminary, New York. {Now liead^

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT By

Frank C. Porter, D.D., Professor of Biblical Theology, Yale University
New Haven, Conn. J'

THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By George B. Stevens,
D.D., sometime Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University New
Haven, Conn. \Noxv Ready.

BIBLICAL ARCH/EOLOGY. By G BUCHANAN Gray, D.D, Professor
of Hebrew, Mansfield College, Oxford.

THE ANCIENT CATHOLIC CHURCH. By Robert RAINY, DD

LL.D., sometime Principal of New College, Edinburgh. [Now Ready.

THE EARLY LATIN CHURCH. By Charles BlGG, D.D., Regius Pro-
fessor of Church History, University of Oxford.

Fhe International Theological Library

THE LATER LATIN CHURCH. By E. W. WATSON, M.A., Professor
of Church History, King's College, London.

THE GREEK AND OR! ENTAL CH U RCH ES. By W. F. ADENEY,D.D.,

Principal of Independent College, Manchester.

THE REFORMATION. By T. M. LINDSAY, D.D., Principal of the United
Free College, Glasgow. [2 vols. A'ow Ready.

SYMEOLICS. By Charles A. Briggs, D.D., B.Litt., Graduate Professor
of Theological Encyclopaedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary,
New York.

HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. By G. P. Fisher, D.D.,
LL. D. , Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Yale University, New Haven,
Conn. [Revised and Enlarged Edition.

CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS. By A. V. G. Allex, D.D., Professor of
Ecclesiastical History, Protestant Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge,
Mass. [Novo Ready.

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. By ROBERT Flint, D.D., LL'.D., some-
time Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh.

THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS. By George F. Moore, D.D., LL.D.,

Professor in Harvard University.

APOLOGETICS. By A. B. Bruce, D.D., sometime Professor of New
Testament Exegesis, Free Church College, Glasgow.

\_Revised and Enlarged Edition.

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD. By William N. Clarke, D.D., Professor
of Systematic Theology, Hamilton Theological Seminary.

THE DOCTRINE OF MAN. By WILLIAM P. Paterson, D.D., Professor
of Divinity, University of Edinburgh.

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST. By H. R. Mackintosh, Ph.D., Professor
of Systematic Theology, New College, Edinburgh.

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SALVATION. By George B. Ste-
vens, D.D., sometime Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University.

[Now Ready.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. By WILLIAM Adams
Brown, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological
Seminary, New York.

CHRISTIAN ETHICS. By Newman Smyth, D.D., Pastor of Congrega-
tional Church, New Haven. [Revised and Enlarged Edition.

THE CHRISTIAN PASTOR AND THE WORKING CHURCH. By
Washington Gladden, D.D., Pastor of Congregational Church, Columbus,
Ohio. [Novo Ready.

THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER. [Author to be announced later.

RABBINICAL LITERATURE. By S. Schechter, M.A., President of
the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City.

£be international ffbeoIOQical library

EDITED BY

CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D.,

Graduate Professor of Theological Encyclop&dia and Symbolics, Union
Theological Seminary, New York;

The late STEWART D. F. SALMOND, D.D.,

Principal, and Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament Exegesis,
United Free Church College, Aberdeen.

CANON AND TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

By CASPAR RENE GREGORY,
D.D., LL.D.

International Theological Library

CANON and TEXT

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT

. BY

CASPAR REN£ GREGORY

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1907

^

/-/&*),&

TO

MY OLD FRIEND

JOHN KEMP

OF LINCOLN'S INN BARRISTER AT LAW

IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF MUCH
HELP AND SYMPATHY

CANON AND TEXT

A Gene al View ....
CANON

Introduction .....

A. The word Canon, pp. 15-20; — B. The Jewish Canon
pp. 20-26; — C. Intercommunication, pp. 26-31; — D
Book- Making, pp. 32-36 ; — E. What we seek, pp. 36-42

I. THE APOSTOLIC AGE: 33-90(100).
II. THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE : 90-160

III. THE AGE OF IREN^US : 160-200 .

Witnesses, pp. 111-159; — Possibilities of Tradition
pp. 159-162 ; — Testimony to each book, pp. 162-212
— Books read in church, pp. 213-216

IV. THE AGE OF ORIGEN : 200-300 .

Books in the New Testament, pp. 219-234 ; — Books
near the New Testament, pp. 234-255

V. THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS : 300-370 .

VI. THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA:
370-700 ......

XEXX .....•••

I. PAPYRUS

II. PARCHMENT

III. LARGE LETTER GREEK MANUSCRIPTS

Sinaiticus, p. 329 ; Vaticanus, p. 343

IV. SMALL LETTER GREEK MANUSCRIPTS

V. LESSON-BOOKS

VI. TRANSLATIONS .

Syriac, p. 396 ; Coptic, p. 403 ; Latin, p. 407

VII. CHURCH WRITERS .

Second Century, p. 430; Third Century, p. 431;
Fourth Century, p. 432

VIII. PRINTED EDITIONS

Complutensian, p. 439 ; Erasmus, p. 440 ; Estienne, p.
441 ; Mill, p. 445 ; Bengel, p. 447 ; Wettstein, p. 447 ;
Harwood, p. 449 ; Lachmann, p. 452 ; Tischendorf,
p. 455 ; Tregelles, p. 460 ; Westcott and Hort, p. 463

IX. THE EXTERNALS OF THE TEXT

Order of Books, p. 467 ; Harmony of Gospels, p. 470 ;
Euthalius, p. 472 ; Verses, p. 474

X. EARLY HISTORY OF TEXT

Classes of Text, p. 480 ; Original Text, p. 483 ;
Re-Wrought Text, p. 486; Polished Text, p. 491;
Syrian Revisions, p. 494 ; Official Text, p. 500 ;
Interesting Passages, pp. 508-526

FAGES

5-295
7-42

43-54

55-110

111-217

218-255

256-272

273-295
297-528
299-316
317-328
329-369

370-383

384-393
394-418

419-436
437-466

467-478

479-528

THE CANON AND THE TEXT

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

A GENERAL VIEW.

The consideration of the canon and the text of the New
Testament forms a preface to the study of what is called intro-
duction. It is true that these two topics have sometimes of
late years been remanded to the close of introduction, have been
treated in a somewhat perfunctory way, and have been threatened
with exclusion from the field. The earlier habit of joining them
together and placing them at the front was much more correct.
Now and then they were termed as a whole " general introduc-
tion." The rest of introduction, the criticism of the contents of
the books in and for themselves, was then called "special
introduction." The use of these names does not seem to me
to be necessary. The introduction to the study of the New
Testament is made up of three criticisms, of the critical treatment
of three things.

The criticism of the canon tells us with what writings we
have to deal, affords us the needed insight into the circumstances
which accompanied the origin of these writings, and examines
not only the favourable judgment passed upon these writings
by Christianity, but also the adverse judgment that fell to the lot
of other in a certain measure similar writings. This first criticism
then rounds off the field for the New Testament student. Other
writings he may touch upon by way of illustration. He need
treat in detail of no others. It is true that a few scholars have
i

2 THE CANON AND THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

thrust into the introduction to the New Testament a series of
other books not belonging to the New Testament, and that a
collection of such books was issued under the title of the " New
Testament outside of the received canon." This proceeding is
to my mind unnecessary, unwise, and contrary to the rules of
scientific research. It produces confusion and relieves no
difficulty.

The second criticism is the criticism of the text. The
criticism of the canon settled upon large lines, drew a circle
around, the object of study. If we take a given book in hand
we know from the criticism of the canon all that we need to
know of its external fate, and we know that it is a due object of
our attention. But upon opening it, or during our work upon it,
we may find that a certain section in it, possibly a section that
has excited our interest and has led us to much expense of time
and labour, — we may find that this section is really not a proper
and genuine part of the book in question. Further, even if
the book mooted contained no complete paragraph that was
spurious, it would be possible that difficulties, and that of a
serious nature, arise from a cause similar to the one just
mentioned. We might form a certain conception of an important
passage and base upon this conception a historical conclusion, a
dogmatical theory, or an important theme in a sermon, only to
learn at a later date that a phrase or a word which was vital to
our point was not a part of the true text of the passage, that it
had been the result of an unintentional or even of an intentional
transformation, substitution, or addition long centuries ago. It
is the criticism of the text alone that can save us from such
trouble. The criticism of the text, if we may play upon the
words, must do intensively that which the criticism of the canon
does extensively ; the canon touches the exterior, the text the
interior. It must delve into the libraries, turn the leaves of the
manuscripts, and determine for us what words and combinations
of words make up each of the books to which we have to turn.
Is the state of the text at any point uncertain, this criticism tells
us about it, and gives us the materials for forming a judgment for
ourselves.

The third criticism is the criticism of the contents of the
books. It finds its way clear so soon as the two previous
criticisms have done their work. It proceeds then to examine

A GENERAL VIEW 3

in detail all questions that affect the contents of the books. It
is not exegesis, although, as in both of the other criticisms, the
exercise of exegetical keenness will be necessary at every step.
It would be hard to combat the declaration that the most
searching, profound, and complete exegesis is of the greatest
assistance to the work of the criticism of the contents. Yet
the two are distinct, and the criticism of the contents must
theoretically and practically precede exegesis proper, however
certain it is that after completing the criticism of the contents
and passing on to and completing the exegesis of the books, the
scholar will return to all three of the introductory criticisms and
modify the judgments there passed. It is the interweaving of
all life. In the present work we have to do solely with the first
two criticisms.

4

THE CANON

OF

THE NEW TESTAMENT

THE CANON.

INTRODUCTION.

The first duty of a scholar is to secure a clear view of his aim
in taking up a given subject. In the case of a large number of
the writings which treat of the right that the New Testament
books have to a place in that collection, this duty has so far as
I can see been neglected. The discussions touching the proper
contents of the New Testament have been dominated by the
word canon. This word has, it may be imperceptibly, come to
determine the course of the inquiry. The general supposition is
that a canon exists. It is in approaching the subject taken for
granted as a thing long ago proved, or so certainly and well
known as to need no proof, that a certain canon was settled
upon at a very early date in the history of the Christian Church.
And the word canon in connection with this view means a
sharply denned and unalterable collection made, put together,
decided upon by general Church authority under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit. The long held theory of the inspiration of
every word in the books of the Bible needed as an accompani-
ment an inspired selection of the inspired books. For the
purposes, then, of the inquiring scholar the canon of the New
Testament is the book or the collection of the books of the New
Testament, and that of the New Testament precisely in the
extent and within the limits of the one that we use to-day.

From this starting-point it has been the custom to enter
upon the " history " of the canon. The canon is presupposed
as something that of right exists and is beyond all doubt. All
then that is to be done is to trace the various steps that led in
the early age of the Church to its formation and determination
or authorisation, that is to say, it is only necessary to write the

8 THE CANON

history of the canon, as though we should speak of the history of
the Church or of the history of Greece. If in examining the
subject one thing or another seem uncertain or not clear, it is
no matter. That is a mere accident of history. The canon
exists, that is plain, whether we know or do not know when and
why, according to what rules and regulations, and by whom it
was formed. The inquiry then serves merely to determine the
question of more or of less in the contents of the canon, or of
more or less in the testimony to the existence and contents of the
canon. These things are all very well ; they are right, and are
of weight in clearing up the whole field. Nevertheless this is
not the right aim, not the right way to put the question. The
reason why it has done less mischief than it otherwise might
have done, is that the larger number of the books of the New
Testament were from a very early period beyond all doubt in
the possession of and were diligently used by many Christians.

That way of opening the case was wrong. The first thing to
be done is to determine whether or not there is a canon. For
the moment we may here hold fast to the current use of the
expression. The first duty of the inquirer in this field is to
determine whether or not there existed at an early period in the
history of the Christian Church a positively official and authorised
collection of books that was acknowledged by the whole of
Christendom, that was everywhere and in precisely the same
manner constituted and certain, and that corresponded exactly
to the New Testament now generally in use in Western Europe
and in America. Compare the case with that of the word
doctrine or dogma. A dogma is a doctrinal statement that has
been officially, ecclesiastically defined, that has been determined
upon by a general council of the Church. Were it not open to
view that such official definitions are in our hands, the first aim
of the dogmatician would be to inquire whether there were any
dogmas in existence. We have now to ask, whether or not
there is a canon of the New Testament. Our first aim is not
the history of the canon, but the criticism of the canon. Should
it be objected that we cannot criticise a thing that does not
exist, the reply to this just observation is, that the criticism of
the canon, in case a canon does not exist, resolves itself into
the criticism of the statements about a presupposed canon,
statements that have been rife for a long while. We have, on

INTRODUCTION 9

the one hand, to examine the traditionally accepted statements
and declarations bearing upon the origin or the original existence
of the books of the New Testament and upon the process by
which they were gathered together into one collection. On the
other hand, we have to seek in the surroundings of the early
Church, in the early Church in so far as it occupied itself with
the earliest books, in the early Church as the guardian of the
earliest books, — we have to seek for signs of the combination
of, the putting together of, the uniting of, two or more books in
such a way that they were to remain together as forming a
special and definite volume of a more or less normative character
for the use of Christians and the Church. We say of Christians
and of the Church. The two are not of necessity the same. It
would be quite possible to think of the combining into one
volume of various books which would be interesting and useful
and even adapted to build up a Christian character, and which,
therefore, would be desirable for Christians, which nevertheless
would not be suited in the least for the public services of the
Church. We shall see later that it was possible for some writings
to be upon the boundary between these two classes, between the
books for Christians in their private life and the books for use in
church.

Should any one fear that it must be totally impossible to
give a due answer to the question as to the existence of a canon
before the whole field has been carefully examined, the difficulty
or the impossibility must at once be conceded. As a matter
of fact, however, the difficulty is hardly more than an apparent,
or a theoretical, or a momentary one. For if we proceed
upon the supposition that no canon is to be presupposed, that
we are not to determine that there is a canon until we discover
it in the course of our inquiry, the difficulty will be only apparent
or theoretical. Our researches upon the lines already pointed
out will continue unhampered, either until a canon offers itself
to view, or until, having reached the present without detecting
signs of a canon, we conclude that none ever existed. The
answer to the question must come forth from the threads of
the discussion. It is indifferent at what point. In so far as
the fear alluded to proceeds from a solicitude for the dearly
cherished canon of tradition, the difficulty may prove to be but
temporary. For the current assumption is, that the canon is

10 THE CANON

there almost from the first, that the books of the New Testament
can scarcely be conceived of as all in existence for an appreciable
space of time before the swift arm of ecclesiastical power and
forethought gathered them from the four winds of heaven and
sealed them in the official volume. Should we, then, in the
earliest periods of the history of the Church find that the assumed
canon fails to present itself to our view, there will, it is true,
be a certain shock to be borne by those who have thus far held
to the existence of the canon. But that will pass quickly by and
leave a calm mind for the treatment of the succeeding periods.

In one case or another a question might emerge from the
discussion that would perplex the inquiring mind. Should
the testimony for a given book seem either to be weak in general
or to offer special and peculiar reasons for uncertainty, the query
would at once arise, whether it have had, and whether it still
to-day continue to have or cease to have, a right to hold the
place it actually occupies in the New Testament volume. Such
doubt might even find a proper place in consideration of the
rules which were either clearly seen to be, or which have long
been traditionally assumed to be, the rules of the early Christians
for accepting or for rejecting books. In such a case it would
not be absolutely necessary to think of a false judgment, of a
false subjective conception, on the part of the Christians of that
day, of facts or of circumstances that stood and stand in fully
the same manner at the command of the Christians then and
of Christians to-day. For it is altogether conceivable that a
scholar to-day should be able to gain a wider and more compre-
hensive view of the circumstances of that early time, as well
as greater clearness and greater depth of insight into the mental
movements of the period, than a Christian scholar of that very
time could have secured. It may be possible or necessary to
say that the decision at that time would have been ren-
dered in another sense if the judges had known what we now
know.

This question would in outward practice take the form of
asking, whether or not we intend to-day either to limit or to
extend the number of the books in the New Testament, whether,
for example, we should like to leave out the Epistle of James
because Luther did not like it, or the Revelation because it

INTRODUCTION II

is too dream -like, or the Epistle to the Hebrews because it is
not from Paul's mouth, or the Second Epistle of Peter because
it was so little known at the first, or the Acts of the Apostles
partly because it is not mentioned until a late date, partly because
it offers to us a great many puzzling questions, or the Fourth
Gospel because it does not say : " I, John the son of Zebedee,
write this present book and place my seal upon it, which shall
remain visible to every man to all eternity." Do we really
purpose to ask the Bible societies to publish the New Testament
without one or the other of these books? This question will
strike younger men as very strange. It will seem less singular
to the older ones who remember the apocryphal books of the
Old Testament in our common Bibles. These books had for
centuries in many circles maintained their place beside, among,
the books of the Old Testament. The Protestant Church looked
askance at some of them, condemned them all, and put them
out of the Bibles in common use, so that to-day it is not easy
for any but scholars to find access to them. It was scarcely
well-advised to turn those books out of the sacred volume ; for
they offered not only much valuable historical matter, but as
well religious writings suited to elevate the soul. They went far
to bridge over the gulf between the Old and the New Testa-
ment. From this — to return to the practical question just
put — it will at once be apparent to every one that we do not
cherish the wish to reduce the number of the books of the
New Testament.

The companion thought is just as possible. It may be
necessary to ask, whether after due consideration of the
circumstances it may become our duty to say that other writings
besides those that are found in our New Testament to-day are
to be declared worthy to have a place in it. Perhaps some
one may succeed in proving that if the Christians of that
day had had our knowledge touching a given book they would
have received it as a proper part of the New Testament collection.
This thought may assume the form, that we are in a position
to declare that a certain book, which in some circles was then
regarded as either belonging \o the New Testament or as
being fully equal to the writings of the New Testament, would
certainly also on the part of the authoritative or ruling circles
of the time have met with a more favourable reception and have

12 THE CANON

been placed among the books of the New Testament had those
high circles had our present knowledge with respect to the book
in question. But we have no desire to increase directly the
number of the books in our New Testament or to add to it
as a second volume the so-called " New Testament outside of
the received canon."

Lest any one should be led by these observations to suppose
that it is our purpose to turn the whole of the New Testament
upside down, or at least to make it appear that the greater
part of it is of doubtful value, we hasten to state that we have
no such intention, and that we regard anything of that kind
as scientifically impossible. The books of the New Testament
are in general to be recognised as from an early date the
normative writings of the rising Christian Church. It is not
easy to see upon what ground a man could take his stand,
who should set out to prove, let us say, that only one Gospel
or only one letter of Paul's was genuine, or even that not a single
New Testament book was genuine. In that case Christianity
must have developed itself from a cell or a convolution in the
brain of a Gnostic of the second century, and also have unfolded
itself by a backward motion into the books of the so-called
New Testament. But, if the Church were prepared to accept
this, we may be sure that some one would at once call the
existence of that Gnostic, or of any and every Gnostic, in ques-
tion. It is, then, not our purpose either to declare or to prove
that the New Testament is not genuine.

People, however, often treat the Bible, and in particular
the New Testament, as if they were fetish worshippers. They
refer to the books, to the paragraphs, to the sentences, and to
the words with a species of holy fear. They refuse to allow
the least portion of it to be called in question. They consider
a free, a paraphrastic use of its sentences to be something
profane. They hold that the words of the New Testament
are to be reproduced, quoted, used with the most painful accuracy
precisely as they stand upon the sacred page. They think
that anything else, any free use of the words, any shortening or
lengthening of the sentences, falls under the terrible curse
pronounced in the Revelation of John at the close of its
prophecies. It may readily be granted that the general thought

INTRODUCTION 1 3

of those verses may in special cases find a fitting application
within a limited circle, in order to keep thoughtless men from
a trifling use of these books and of their words. As a curse,
the words should be remanded to the time and the circle of
the author of that particular book. It is never desirable, never
admissible to use the truth and the words of the truth as a
means of frightening the ignorant, and as little should we try
to protect the words of the truth by a bugbear. The truth
suffers, it is true, under every impure application of its contents,
and as well under every less careful observance of, or every
twisted and untrue use of, the form of its contents. The writings
of the New Testament are not to be treated with levity. But
they are just as little to be used in a mysterious way to
frighten people.

It will be our duty here first of all to examine the somewhat
kaleidoscopic word canon, since we shall otherwise stumble
at every step in tracing its use in profane and ecclesiastical
history. After that it will be advisable to cast a glance at the
way in which the Jews treated their sacred books. The Jews
stood as patterns to a certain degree for the men who gathered
the books of the New Testament together, seeing that at the
first these books were brought into close connection with the
books of the Old Testament. As a matter of course no Jewish
authority can have had a hand in the collection of the Christian
books. Yet we must seek in Jewish circles for a clue to the
thoughts that guided the Christian collectors. The question
as to the freedom of travel and the ease or difficulty of com-
munication between different parts of the known world of that
day, or of the Roman Empire with its surroundings, might seem
at the first blush to lie far aside from our inquiry. If I do
not err, it really has much weight for our researches, and we
shall devote a few moments to it. It will also be apparent to
every one that we must give some attention in advance to the/
way in which books were written, given to the public, and
reproduced in the early centuries of our era. These four points :
the canon, the Jewish canon, intercommunication in the Roman
Empire, and bookmaking, complete the necessary preparation
for the work before us. We shall then describe briefly what
it is to which we have to direct our attention in entering

14 THE CANON

upon the examination of the early history and literature of the-
Church.

In the criticism of the canon itself, it would be most fortunate
if we could, as is desirable in every treatment of historical matter,
build our foundation or lay out the course of our researches
concomitantly, not only according to time, but also according
to place. Since that is, alas ! impossible, it would be a good
thing to pass through the whole field of this criticism twice,
discussing everything the first time according to the succession
of the years and centuries, and the second time according to
the contemporaneous conditions in the several divisions of the
growing Church, in the Churches of the different countries, peoples,
and tongues. This would, however, exceed the limits of our
space, and we shall therefore have to content ourselves with
treating our subject according to time. We shall speak of
six periods. The distinction of these periods is to a large extent
not severely necessary, but it is convenient.

The first period extends from the year 30 to 90 after Christ,
and may be termed the period of the Apostles. In it the most
of the books with which we have to do were written. The
second period, from 90 to 160. places before our eyes the earlier
use of the books that are in the New Testament, and the
gathering them together into groups, preparing for their com-
bination into a single whole. This period is, as a matter of
fact, by far the most important period in the course of our
discussion. For it is during these years of this post-apostolic
period that these books pass from a common to a sacred use.
The third period, from 160 to 200, we may call the period
of Irenaeus. Here the Old Catholic Church is on a firm footing,
and the life in several of the great national divis'.ons of the
Church begins to be more open and more confident. The
fourth period, from 200 to 300, bears the stamp of the giant
Origen, but brings with it many a valiant man, not least
Dionysius of Alexandria and Tertullian of Carthage. The fifth
period, from 300 to 370, the period of Eusebius, sees the opening
of the series of great councils in the Council of Nice in 325.
Eusebius himself, the quoter of the earlier literature of the
Church, has done a vast deal for the definition of the canon.
The sixth period, from 370 to 700, bears the name of the much

INTRODUCTION—^. THE WORD CANON 1 5

defamed scholar, the great theologian Theodore of Mopsuestia,
and brings us into the work of Jerome and of Augustine. By
that time the treatment of the books of the New Testament
has become to such a degree uniform in the different parts of
the Church, or has, in case of the variation of some communities
from the general rule, attained such a stability, that it is no
longer necessary to follow it up in detail. Should a canon
not be determined upon before the close of that period, should
a given book not have won for itself a clear recognition by
that time, there is but little likelihood that the one or thp, other
ever will come to pass.

A. The Word Canon.

The word canon seems to spring from a Hebrew root, unless
indeed this should be one of the roots that extend across the
bounds of the classes of languages and may claim a universal
authority. The Hebrew verb " kana " means to stand a thing up
straight, and then takes the subsidiary meanings of creating or
founding, and of gaining or buying. The first or main sense
leads to the Hebrew noun " kane" that at first means a reed. Of
course such a reed was for a man without wood at hand an excellent
measuring-rod, and the word was applied to that too ; and it
was taken horizontally also and used for the rod of a pair of scales,
and then for the scales themselves. In Greek we find the word
" kanna " used for a reed and for things made by weaving reeds
together, and the word "kanon " for any straight stick like a yard-
stick or the scale beam. In Homer the latter word was used for
the two pieces of wood that were laid crosswise to keep the leather
shield well rounded out. The word " kanon" which we then write
canon in English, found favour in the eyes of the Greek, and
passed from the sense of a measuring-rod to be used for a plumb-
line or for a level, or a ruler, for anything that was a measure or
a rule for other things. It entered the mental sphere and there
it also stood for a rule, for an order that told a man what was
right or what he had to do. In sculpture a statue modelled by
Polycleitos was called a canon, for it was so nearly perfect that it
was acknowledged as a rule for the proportions of a beautiful
human body. In music the monochord was called a canon, seeing

1 6 THE CANON

that all the further relations of tones were determined from it
as a basis. We call the ancient Greek writers classics, because
they are supposed to be patterns or models in more ways than
one ; the grammarians in Alexandria called them the canon. And
these same grammarians called their rules for declensions and
conjugations and syntax canons. In chronology the canons were
the great dates which were known or assumed to be certain and
firm. The periods in between were then calculated from these
main dates. The word was thus very varied in its application ;
it might mean a table of contents, it might mean an important
principle.

A favourite use of the word was for a measure, a definition,
an order, a command, a law. Euripides speaks of the canon of
good, Aeschines of the canon of what is just. Philo speaks o£
Joshua as a canon, as we might say, an ideal for subsequent
leaders. Before the time of Christ I do not know that it was
applied to religion, but it was applied in morals. Other words
were often used by preference for positive laws and ordinances,
and canon was used for a law or a command that only existed in
the conception of the mind or for an ideal rule.

Christians found good use for such a word. Paul used it in
the sixth chapter of Galatians and the sixteenth verse, where after
speaking of the worthlessness of circumcision and of non-
circumcision and the worth of a new creation, he added : mercy
be upon all those that walk according to this canon. And in the
tenth chapter of Second Corinthians, verses thirteen to sixteen,
he alluded to the measure of the canon, to our canon, and to a
foreign canon. Our good women of to-day will not admire the
phrase used in the letter of the Church at Rome to the Church
at Corinth, the so-called letter of Clement, which speaks (i. 3) of
the women " who are under the canon of obedience." The same
letter also says (7. 2): "Let us quit, then, the empty and vain
cares and pass on to the glorious and honourable canon of our
tradition." And in still a third sentence of it (41. 1) we find the
words : " without going out beyond the set canon of his due
service." Hegesippus (Eus. H. E. 3. 32) speaks of people "who
try to corrupt the sound canon of the saving preaching " or of
the proclamation of salvation. The author of the Clementine
books finds the " canon of the Church " in that in which all Jews
agree with each other, for he conceives of the Church merely

INTRODUCTION—^. THE WORD CANON 1 7

as a spiritual Judaism. The Christian Church began to feel
its union in a more distinct manner than at the first, and the Old
Catholic Church began to crystallise during the second century.
The Christianity of this movement was a development, but a
development backwards, for, like the author just mentioned, it
found its basis in the Old Testament. Christianity was no longer
with Paul free from the law. It had put itself again under
the law, even though with manifold modifications. For this
Christianity our word was applied in a general sense; the
ecclesiastical canon was the token of the union of the Old and
the New Testament. Clement of Alexandria (Str. 6. 15) called
"the ecclesiastical canon the harmony and symphony of both
law and prophets with the covenant or the testament given when
the Lord was here," while in another passage (6. 11) he refers
to the "musical ecclesiastical harmony of law and prophets,
joined also' with apostles, with the gospel." He also speaks of
the canon of the truth. Elsewhere (7. 16) he speaks of those
who like heretics " steal the canon of the Church." Polycrates,
the bishop of Ephesus, in writing to Victor of Rome appealed
to the witness of men who followed after the canon of the faith.
Origen, Clement's pupil, refers (de Pr. 4. 9) to the canon " of the
heavenly Church of Jesus Christ according to the succession
of the apostles." He still thinks of the canon as something
which lies more in the idea ; the ecclesiastical proclamation
or preaching was, on the contrary, something actual.

Little by little the word canon came to be used in the Church
for a concrete thing, for a definite and certain decision. This is
in one way a return to the origin, only that it is no longer a foot-
rule or a spirit-level, but an ecclesiastical determination. It was
about the middle of the third century that Cornelius, the bishop
of Rome, wrote to Fabian, the bishop of Antioch, about Novatus,
and complained (Eus. H. E. 6. 43) that, after being baptized when
he was ill, he had not done what, "according to the canon of
the Church," was necessary. Firmilian seems to have, the word
canon in mind shortly after the middle of the third century,
when he writes (Cypr. Ep. 75) about a woman who imitated a
baptism so well " that nothing seemed to vary from the ecclesi-
astical rule " ; he probably would have used the word canon if he
had been writing in Greek instead of in Latin. In the year
266 a synod at Antioch (Mansi, i. 1033), in referring to Paul of
2

I 8 THE CANON

Samosata, declared one of his doctrines to be "foreign to the
ecclesiastical canon " ; the synod used the cautious expression
" we think it to be," but added : " and all the Catholic Churches
agree with us." The edicts of Constantine after 311 made the
conception of Christianity upon which the Catholic and Apostolic
Church was based, that is to say, the ecclesiastical canon of the
Catholics, a recognised religion. Had it been a religion with a
visible god, its god would then have had a right to a place in the
Pantheon at Rome. Thus the ecclesiastical canon, the canon of
the Church, had become a set phrase to denote the rule of the
Church, the custom and general doctrine of the Church. Often
merely the word canon was used The Synod of Ancyra in the
year 315 referred to it as the canon, and so did the Council of
Nice in 325 repeatedly. The plural appears to view first about
the beginning of the fourth century. Perhaps in the year 306
Peter, the bishop of Alexandria, in writing of repentance calls the
conclusions canons, and Eusebius speaks of Philo as having
the canons of the Church. At first the decisions of councils were
called dogmas, but towards the middle of the fourth century, in
the year 341 at Antioch, they also came to be called canons.
Thus far, as we have seen, the word has not been applied, in the
writings which are preserved to us, to the books of Scripture. It
would, however, appear that about the year 350 it gradually
came to be applied to them, but we do not know precisely at what
moment or where or by whom. It has been assumed that this
application might well be carried back as far as the time of
Diocletian, and to an imperial edict of the year 303 that ordered
the Christian Scriptures to be burned ; but we have not the least
foundation for such a theory. Felix, the official charged with
the duty of caring for religion, and of preventing the worship and
spread of religions that were not recognised by the State, said to
the Bishop Paul : " Bring me the scriptures of the law," and
Csecilian wrote in 303 to Felix and alluded to the scriptures of
the law. . But this expression is so properly and so naturally
suggested by the Old Testament and Jewish use of the word law,
as to make it totally improper to argue that the word law here is
canon. Much less does it seem to me to be admissible, until we
receive evidence that is not now known, to attribute the use of
the cognate words canonical and canonise in connection with the
Scriptures to Origen. It is by no means certain that the word was

INTRODUCTION — A. THE WORD CANON 19

not used earlier than I have suggested, but it is well to move
cautiously. The first application of the term to Scripture that is
thus far known is not direct, in the word canon, but indirect in
cognate words like those just named. The fifty-ninth canon
(Mansi, ii. 574) of the Synod at Laodicea of about the year 363
determines that "private psalms should not be read in the
churches, nor uncanonised books, but only the canonical [books]
of the New and Old Testament." And in the year 367, when
Athanasius wrote the yearly letter (Ep. Fest. 39) announcing to
the Church the due calculation of the day upon which Easter
would fall, he said : "I thought it well ... to put down in
order the canonised books of which we not only have learned
from tradition but also believe [upon the evidence of our
own hearts?] that they are divine." Here we have nothing
to do with the general contents of Athanasius' statement
or of the canon of the Synod of Laodicea, but only with the
technical term. Both use these terms canonical or canonise
in such a way as to show that they were in common use,
or had been so much used as to be generally understood. It
may be granted that even if a reader of the festal letter did
not happen to have met with the word before, he would have
been able to gather its meaning from this letter itself without
the least difficulty. Nevertheless, I suppose that it had been
used before quite aside from the Synod of Laodicea, and there-
fore I attribute its rise in this sense to the middle of the century.
Having reached this use of the word for the Scriptures, we
must ask in what sense they, the books of the Bible, were called
canonical, for the word has two meanings that look in opposite
directions. A given thing might be canonical because something
had been done to it, that is to say, because it had been put into
the canon, or it might be canonical because it had in and of itself
a certain normative character. A clergyman was called canonical
because he had been canonised, or in other words, not because
he had been a saint and had been declared to be a saint, but
because he had been written down in the list, the canon, let us
say, the table of contents of the given bishopric. And he was
also, though probably only later, called canonical because he was
one of those who were bound to live according to a certain rule
or canon. What was the case with a book of the Bible? It
seems to me to be likely, in spite of the fact that wc have no

20 THE CANON

direct testimony to the custom as a custom, that Christian
scholars and bishops before the time of Eusebius were in the
habit of making lists of the books that they included in the
Scriptures. There is one such list, containing some of the books
of the New Testament, of which we have a fragment in the
Muratorian leaves, and it may be as early as the year 170. Aside
from that, the only list known to us by name before the time of
Eusebius is one containing the books of the Old Testament
which Melito, the bishop of Sardes in the third and fourth
quarters of the second century, says that he had made ; he had
gone to the East for the purpose of studying scripture history, and
made the list of the Old Testament books after he had learned
all about them. It may then well be the case that at least in
some places the books of the New Testament were called
canonical because they had been added to such a list, were found
in such lists. Were any one in doubt about a given book, he
could beg the bishop to tell him whether or not it stood in the
list or canon. The use of the word in this sense does not in any
way preclude its having been used in the other sense. It is in
every way probable that the books of the Old Testament at first,
and then later also the books of the New Testament at an early
date, came to be called canonical in the sense that they contain
that which is fitted to serve as a measure for all else, and in
particular for the determination of faith and conduct. It was in
connection with both meanings, but especially with the latter,
that the thought of a totally finished and closed up collection of
books was attached to the word, and that this thus limited series
of writings was called the canon as the only external and visible
rule of truth. Clement of Alexandria had mentioned the canon
of the truth without binding it up with the Scriptures. Two
centuries later Isidore of Pelusium referred to " the canon of the
truth, the divine Scriptures."

B. The Jewish Canon

In order to secure a wide basis for comparison, it would be
of interest to the Christian student, if space allowed, to look at
other religions and ask what sacred books they have, and in
what way these books were determined to be sacred. The

INTRODUCTION— B. THE JEWISH CANON 21

Brahmans have four Vedas, the Rigveda, the Samaveda, the
Yajurveda, and the Atharvaveda, as well as supplementary parts
called Brahmanas. The canonical works are the first three
Vedas with their sections of the supplement. These were given
by divine revelation and are therefore called " hearing " ; God
spoke and men listened. Other books are mere traditions, and
are called " memory " as remembered tradition. The Rigveda,
containing ten books with 1017 hymns, is supposed to date
between 4000 and 2500 before Christ. Many Brahmans hold
that the Vedas were pre-existent in the mind of deity, and
therefore explain away all references to history and all human
elements.

The canon of the Buddhists is different in different places.
The canon of the northern Buddhists appears to have been
determined upon in their fourth council at Cashmere in the
year 78 after Christ, or four hundred and two years after the
death of Buddha. If we turn to the late centre of Buddhism in
Tibet, where it found acceptance in the second quarter of the
seventh century after Christ, we find a canon of 104 volumes
containing 1083 books; this is named Kanjur. The Tanjur
supplements it with 225 (not canonical) volumes of commentary
and profane matter. The collection of the canonical books is
so holy that sacrifices made to it are accounted very meritorious.

In Egypt we find the Book of the Dead, which might almost
be called a handbook or a guide-book for departed spirits,
containing the needed information about the gods and the future
world. It is called the canon of the Egyptians; but there is
no great clearness in reference to the book in general, and
its canonicity in particular. We know even less about the
Hermetical Books, which are attributed to the god Thoth or
Hermes Trismegistos. Clement of Alexandria counted forty-two
of them, but Seleucus in Iamblichus speaks of 20,000, and
Manetho of 36,525. It may be that these large numbers apply
to the lines contained in the books ; in that case the great
difference between the numbers would be intelligible.

Rome honoured the Sibylline books. After the destruction,
the burning, of the Capitol in the year 8^ before Christ, the State
ordered the books of the fates that were in private hands to be
gathered together in order to replace the old books that had
perished. Copies of the books were sought for all around, and

22 THE CANON

especially in Asia Minor. It is said that above two thousand
of these private books were on examination rejected and burned
as worthless imitations. The renewed volumes were placed in
the temple of the Palatine Apollo, and unfortunately ruthlessly
burned by Stilicho in the fifth century. Here the notions of
inspiration and canonicity do not seem to be strongly marked.

The Persian Avesta, as we have it to-day, offers a mere
fragment of the original work, and does not seem to be sur-
rounded by a special halo of inspiration. The first part, called
Jasna or Prayers, contains, among other matter, five Gathas or
hymns, which are directly attributed to Zarathustra himself, who
lived more than six centuries before Christ.

The Koran is supposed to be a product or an embodiment
of the Divine Being, and only pure and believing men are to be
allowed to touch it. It is uncreated. It lay on a table beside
the throne of God written on a single scroll. In the night
Alkadar of the month Ramadan Gabriel let it down into the
lowest heaven, and it was imparted to Mohammed bit by bit
according to necessity. Mohammed caused his secretary to
write it down ; and he kept it, not in any special order, in a box.
Later it was edited, rewrought into the shape in which we have
it now.

Before we leave the realm of myth and uncertainty it may
be well to recall the statement of the Talmud, that the law of
Moses almost equals the divine wisdom, and that it was created
nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the creation
of the world, or a thousand generations before Moses.

According to the Jewish tradition, the law, the Tora, was
written by Moses himself, even the last eight verses about his
death. Some thought that it was put by God directly into the
hands of Moses, and that either all at once or book by book.
Among the Jews, questions as to the canonicity, or let us say
as to the authenticity, and authority of one book or another
have been much discussed, less, however, for the purpose of
laying aside the book suspected, and more for the greater glory
of the successfully defended book. A curious form of the
debate is to be found in the question whether the book treated
of soiled the hands. If it did, it was canonical. If not, not.
This point is said to have originated in the time of the ark, and

INTRODUCTION—/?. THE JEWISH CANON 23

to have been devised, that is to say, the declaration that the
canonical writings soiled the hands was devised to prevent
people and prevent priests from freely handling the copy of the
law kept in the ark.

Three classes of men attached especially to the law, the
Sofrim or bookmen or scribes or the Scripture students, the
lawyers, and the teachers of the law, the rabbis. Quotations
from the Scriptures were introduced by the formula : " It is
said," or, " It is written." So soon as the Jews, but that was at
a late day, observed that the copying of the law led to errors,
they instituted a critical treatment of the text, trying to compel
accuracy of copying. They counted the lines, the words, and
the letters, and they cast aside a sheet upon which a mistake had
been made.

We may assume that some written documents were in the
hands of the Israelites from the time of Moses, but we can in
no way define them. They doubtless included especially laws,
and then as an accompaniment traditions. When, however,
we speak of the Israelites, it does not follow that all existing
documents were to be found on one spot, and in the hands of
one librarian or keeper of archives. It is a matter of course
that the persons first to care for, to write, and keep such
documents were the heads of families and the priests. Whether
they were of a directly legal character like laws and ordinances,
and deeds of gift or purchase, or whether they were of a more
historical description like accounts of the original ages of the
tribes, or of humanity, the recital of travel and of wars, and,
above all, the birth lists of the great families, — it is a matter of
course that the persons who had these would be the sheiks, the
old men, the tribal heads. In many cases such a man in
authority will have had his priest, who will at the same time
have been a scribe, as a proper guardian of these treasures. In
other cases the sheik will have been his own priest and his own
keeper of the rolls. The documents will then have been largely
local and of a limited general value. But it will have been a
thing of common knowledge that one or two centres, I name
Shiloh as a likely one, were possessed of particularly good
collections. To these the more intelligent will have applied for
copies of given writings, and the less well educated for informa-
tion about their history, their family, and their rights. It is

24 THE CANON

clear that in Hosea's day, in the eighth century before Christ,
many laws held to be divine were known, even though he does
not make it clear to us just what laws these were. And the
Second Book of Kings shows the high authority conceded to
the law at the time of Josiah, in the last quarter of the seventh
century, in spite of the fact that the previous disappearance of
the law, that the thought of its having been forgotten and having
needed to be found again, gives a shock to those who would
fain believe that the priests and all the laws were active and
in force in all their vigour and extent from the time of Moses
onward. We may date the authoritative acceptance of the five
books of the law, or if anyone prefers to put it differently, the
renewed acceptance, or the first clearly defined acceptance of
that whole law, at the time of Ezra, about the middle of the
fifth century before Christ. The "front" and the "back" pro-
phets, or the historical books and the great prophetical works,
may have been determined upon soon after that time, although
it is suggested that they were not really of full authority before
the second century before Christ. We do not know about it ;
nothing gives us a fixed date. The same is true for the third
part of the Hebrew Bible. Book after book in it seems to have
been taken up by the authorities, who now can have been none
other than the scribes and lawyers in Jerusalem. Whether the
process was one of conscious canonising or authorisation from
the first for these books, or whether at first the writings were
merely collected and preserved rather than authorised, it would
be hard to say. The latter seems probable. So far as can
be determined, no new book was added after the time of the
Maccabees. But various books seem to have been called in
question as late even as the first century after Christ.

We have as a result of this process, in describing which I
have used the word canon and its cognates in the current sense,
an Old Testament in three parts : Law, Prophets, Writings. The
third part received then in Greek the name " Holy Writings."
It is important for us at this point, in view of the close con-
nection between the Old Testament and the New Testament, to
ask : What is the definiteness and surety of the work of making
or settling the canon of the Old Testament? This question is
of all the greater interest because the time of the commonly
assumed determination of the canon of the New Testament is

INTRODUCTION— B. THE JEWISH CANON 25

not separated by any very great interval from the last of the
dates above mentioned. Even in our rapid survey of the field —
and a more detailed inquiry would only have made the uncer-
tainties more palpable — every one at once perceives that the
authoritative declarations as to the divine origin of the books
leave much to be desired for those who are accustomed to hear
the canon of the Old Testament referred to as if it were as firm
as a rock in its foundations. We do, it is true, find a massive
declaration for the acceptance of the law, in part in the seventh
century, in part and finally in the fifth century before Christ.
Yet even in that case we are not absolutely sure of the precise
contents of the law, not absolutely sure even for Ezra, probable
as it is that he had all or nearly all our Pentateuch. And then
what a gap opens between the period of Moses, the lawgiver,
and the time of Ezra, or even of Josiah. If we assume that
Moses lived about the year 1500, and that Ezra led the exiles
back to Palestine about the year 458 before Christ, a thousand
years had passed between. But leave that point. For the
second part, the Prophets, we have no such word of a definite
authoritative proclamation as to its or their authenticity and
dominating value. And for the third part, there is not only no
word of an official declaration, but there is also every sign and
token of a merely casual, gradual taking up into use of one book
after another. It would be desirable, were it possible, to inquire
closely into the special sense in which each book was accepted,
and what the amount of divine authority was, that the men
accepting it attributed to it. That is not possible. The so-called
canon of the Old Testament is anything but a carefully prepared,
chosen, and guarded collection in its first state. If, however,
any one should be inclined on that account to find fault with
the Jews, we must remember that they not only were in the
work of " canonising " and of guarding their sacred books in
those early times far superior to all other known peoples, but
that they at a later date and up to the present have proved
themselves to be unsurpassed, unequalled preservers of tradition
written and unwritten. The Christian Church owes them in
this respect a great debt.

The glimpse at other sacred volumes aside from the Bible
has shown us that our collection of holy books is more concise,
better rounded off, and, we might almost venture to say in

26 ' THE CANON

advance of our present inquiry, better accredited than any others,
save the Koran. But it has also made it plain to us that it has
not been the custom of men in general to "canonise" their
sacred books by a set public announcement ; that sacred books
have, on the contrary, usually found recognition at first only
in limited circles, and have afterwards gradually but almost
imperceptibly or unnoticed passed into the use of the religious
community of the country. It will be necessary to bear this in
mind when we come to examine the testimony for the divine or
ecclesiastical authority of the books of the New Testament

C. Intercommunication in the Roman Empire.

It would be difficult to discuss intelligently the question of
the spread and general acceptance of the books of the New
Testament among the Christians of the various lands and
provinces, without referring to the possibilities of travel then
and there. Probably the majority of modern people who turn
their thoughts back to the Roman Empire in the time of the
apostles, think of those countries and their inhabitants as to a
large extent unable to communicate easily and rapidly with each
other, and they would be much surprised to learn that aside
from railroads, steamers, and the electric telegraph, there would
be little to say in favour of European means of communication,
that a Roman in Greece or Asia Minor or Egypt would have
been able to travel as well as most of the Europeans who lived
before the year 1837. It is to be granted that at that time journeys
to China, South Africa, and North America were not customary.
But no one wished to go to these then unknown or all but
unknown regions. Nowadays people are proud to think that
they can travel or have travelled all over the world. At that
time many people travelled pretty much all over the world that
was then known. At the time of Christ the known world was
little more than the Roman Empire. We might describe it as
the shores of the Mediterranean, if we should take the northern
shores to include the inland provinces adjacent to the provinces
directly on the seaboard. That would carry us to the Atlantic
Ocean across Gaul, to the Black Sea across Asia Minor, and to
the Red Sea across Egypt.

INTRODUCTION — C. INTERCOMMUNICATION 2J

The ease of intercourse depended in a large measure upon the
ships of the Mediterranean. If the sailors then disliked winter
voyages between October and March, there are not a few people
to-day who avoid the sea during those months even when they
can find luxurious steamers to carry them. With the ships that
they used they were able to sail very fairly. For the voyage from
Puteoli to Alexandria only twelve days were necessary ; and if the
wind were good, a ship could sail from Corinth to Alexandria
in five days. The journey from Rome to Carthage could be
made in two ways, either directly from Ostia at the mouth of
the Tiber, and that was a trifle over 300 miles or with a
good wind three days, — or by land 350 miles to Rhegium
(Reggio), across the strait an hour and a half to Messana,
around Sicily to Lilybaum (to-day Marsala), and then with a
ship in twenty-four hours to Carthage, that would be 673 miles
in all. From Carthage to Alexandria by land was 1221 miles.
The direct journey to the East led by land to Brundusium
(Brindisi), from which a ship could reach Dyrrachium in a
day or a day and a half. From Dyrrachium the road passed
through Heraclea, Edessa, Pella, Thessalonica, Philippi, and on
to Byzantium (now Constantinople), in all 947 miles. Starting in
the same way and turning south to Athens the journey would be
761 miles. If the traveller had the Asiatic side in view he
could in Thrace go to Gallipoli and in an hour cross over to
Lampsacus, the starting-point for Antioch in Syria. From
Antioch he could go east to the Euphrates or south to Alexandria.
From Rome to Antioch was 1529 miles, from Rome to the
Euphrates 1592 miles, from Rome to Alexandria 2169 miles.
If a traveller chose, he could go all the way to Byzantium by
land, going north and around by Aquileia, which makes
1 2 1 8 miles for the trip. On the west from Rome to Spain, to
Gades was 1398 miles.

The shipping came later to be, if it was not at the time of
which we have to speak, to a great extent in the hands of certain
companies, although not named as Cunarders or Hamburg-
Americans. The freight ships were by no means very small, and
they carried large cargoes of grain with the most punctual
regularity. From Spain they brought the beautiful and spirited
Spanish horses for the public games ; these horses were so well
known that the different species were at once distinguished by the

28 THE CANON

Romans, who adjusted their wagers accordingly. We must of
necessity suppose that the freight ships also carried people, the
people who had time, and especially those who had not money
to pay for better ships. Paul's journey as a prisoner from
Caesarea to Rome gives us a good example of a freight and
passenger boat, and shows us how the winter affected the
voyage and the voyagers. The quick and, of course, dearer
passenger carrying trade was served by lightly built ships, and
these fast ships will have certainly been often more adventurous
than the freight ships, and have hugged the land less. Particular
attention seems to have been paid to the ships that acted as
ferries or transfer boats on the great lines of travel, since they were
necessary to the use of the roads. For example, from Brundusium
to Dyrrachium, from Gallipoli to Lampsacus, from Rhegium to
Messana. It is likely that frequent vessels passed from the
western coast of Asia Minor towards the north-west, keeping east
of Akte (to-day Mount Athos), and reaching behind Thasos, the
harbour of Neapolis, which was only 1 5 miles from Philippi.

Everyone has heard of the Roman roads. Beginning at
Rome, they stretched through the whole empire. In a
newly conquered land a Roman commander or civil governor
hastened to lay out and to order the work on the roads that
would be adapted to give the troops easy access to all parts of
the country, and to allow of the utilising of the products of the
different districts. Traces, remains, of such roads are to be seen
to-day at many places from Scotland to Africa. Augustus had
the whole empire measured by Greek geometers or civil engineers,
and erected in the Forum at Rome the central pillar from which
the miles were counted off to the most remote regions. Gaius
Gracchus, 123 before Christ, was the first one to bring forward
a law to set milestones at every thousand paces. The principal
distances were given on the pillar itself. Besides that, Augustus
caused a map of the world to be made and hung up in a public
place, a map based on those measurements and on Agrippa's
commentaries on them. Guide-books or lists of the places, and
stations, and distances on the roads were prepared later ; there
may very well at once have been copies made for the chief roads.
Greece is said to have been less carefully provided with roads,
probably owing in part to the difficulty of making roads among
the mountains, in part to the fact that the inhabitants in general

INTRODUCTION— C. INTERCOMMUNICATION 29

caused no great trouble, — while Corinth and Athens were easily
to be reached, — and in part to the circumstance that the sea was
so near at hand that the roads were less necessary.

The travel on these roads, as on our roads to-day, was of four
kinds, on wheels, in sedan-chairs or litters, on beasts, and on foot.
Seeing that the roads were in the first instance made for the
benefit of the government, the officials of every degree had
the preference on the roads. They often acted brutally and
barbarously in compelling the inhabitants to let them have
their horses and oxen to draw waggons, and in urging these
animals to greater speed ; and special orders were issued for-
bidding all such acts. Under given circumstances, travellers, and
especially those in the public service, went very swiftly, changing
horses at every station. Caesar rode from Rome to the Rhone
in his four-wheeled travelling carriage in about eight days,
making 77 miles a day. In his two- wheeled light carriage he
made 97 miles a day. The public post from Antioch to
Constantinople in the fourth century went, including stops, in
about six days, about 4 miles an hour. Private persons used,
according to their means, private carriages, or rode on horses,
mules, or asses, or went on foot. There were societies that let
out carriages or riding horses just as to-day. The foot traveller
was more independent on the roa$ than anyone save the public
officials.

Not infrequently do we hear modern travel spoken of as if it
were an entirely new invention. It is presupposed that in the
times of which we are now treating, the population was almost
exclusively man after man tied close to the one spot on which
he had been born. This conception of the case falls wide of the
mark. A very large number of people were often under way, and
many were never long at rest. We have had occasion to refer
more than once to officials journeying. The condition of the
Roman Empire, the methods by which the lands and districts
were governed and were kept in order and were defended,
required a constant flow of soldiers, of officers, of officials of
every rank hither and thither. These persons had, so far as
their station entitled them to use horses and carriages, the use
of the imperial post, which was forbidden to private persons.
They had therefore also the precedence in the often clashing
claims for relays at the stations, and in the choice of accommoda-

30 THE CANON

tion at the inns. It is scarcely necessary to urge that high
officials also often had a considerable staff of assistants or a
numerous household as a travelling accompaniment. If these
were weighty travellers they found a balance in the other extreme,
in the actors and players who passed from place to place to
afford the people diversion ; doubtless they sometimes associated
themselves closely with the higher and wealthier officials, lighten-
ing by their arts the cares of office, or amusing and thus occupy-
ing the thoughts of the populace and making them more content
with the government. Precisely as to-day, countless invalids
sought health far from home at baths, at healing springs, in
milder or in cooler climes, and that not merely the wealthy, but
also many a poor man. Rich Romans made excursions to their
possessions in Gaul, in Spain, in Africa, and sometimes took a
crowd of friends with them as well as a host of servants. Others
travelled to see the peculiarities or the beauties of foreign peoples
and foreign landscapes. Some went to consult oracles. Work-
men went in numbers hither and thither, now driven like the
wandering apprentice by the thirst for further knowledge of the
secrets of their handiwork, now sent out by the rich at Rome
or sent for by the rich abroad to ply their skilful arts in city
houses or country houses in the provinces or in distant lands.
Manufacturers, if we may use the term for those who rose above
the level of the mere workman, also went from place to place,
sometimes on compulsion, like Priscilla and Aquila who had to
leave Rome, sometimes of their own will, to wit the journey
which we may presuppose that Prisca and Aquila made previously
to Rome, and their journey from Corinth to Ephesus. They were
doubtless part makers and part sellers of tent cloth from camels'
hair. Paul's own case is like that of the workmen, and he may
at Corinth really have worked for Prisca and Aquila. It is not
at all unlikely that he answered, or that he would have answered,
an inquisitive policeman on reaching Corinth, that the purpose
of his coming was to work at his trade in the bazaar. Reference
to his mission would have been as unintelligible as it would have
been suspicious in reply to such an official. Of course, merchants
travelled. Many of them went with their goods on ships, others
will have travelled by land, carrying their boxes and bales on
waggons, on beasts, or on the backs of their slaves. An inscrip-
tion tells us of a merchant in Hierapolis who travelled from

INTRODUCTION— C. INTERCOMMUNICATION 3 1

Asia Minor to Italy seventy-two times. And learning will have
caused many a journey. Teachers went hither and thither to
gather new classes of pupils, themselves gaining in wisdom by
their new experiences. And students sought at Alexandria, at
Athens, at Antioch, at Tarsus, or at Rome itself the teachers
needed for their special subjects. Paul went to sit at the feet
of Gamaliel at Jerusalem, and when he later went to Tarsus, his
birthplace, again, it is likely that he visited the university.

The things shipped from and to a land afford an insight into
an important part of its relations to other lands, and show how
easily or with how much difficulty men and writings could pass
from one country to the other. It will suffice to limit ourselves
to Palestine, for that is our centre. Tunny-fish were brought
thither from Spain, and Egyptian fish also, I suppose from the
Nile. Persia supplied certain nuts. Beans and lentils came
from Egypt. Grits were sent from Cilicia, Paul's province.
Greece sent squashes. The Egyptians sent mustard. Edom
was the source for vinegar. Bithynia furnished cheese. Media
was the brewery for beer. Babylon sent sauces. Greece and
Italy sent hyssop, it is said; — why this plant was sought from
afar I do not know ; perhaps it was a particular species. Cotton
came from India. So much for the imports. A word as to the
exports of this little country. The Lake of Tiberias produced
salted and pickled fish ; the town Taricheae was the " Pickelries."
Galilee was celebrated for its linen. And Judea supplied wool
and woollen goods; Jerusalem had its sheep market and its
wool market.

This brief review makes it plain that the period before us is
one of continual movement in all directions. For the spread of
Christianity and for the subsequent widespread scattering abroad
of, and the universal acceptance of the cherished literature of the
early Christians, this journeying and sending of men and of goods
from one end of the empire to the other could not but be of the
greatest importance. Quite aside from the actual travel and
the actual traffic, the mental attitude of men was one of calm
consideration of, and not of suspicion or flashing hatred towards,
all that came from another country.

32 THE CANON

D. BOOKMAKING OF OLD.

In considering the fates and fortunes of books, it is important
to ask how they were made. Here we may touch upon a few
points bearing more upon the criticism of the canon. Other points
will come up in connection with the criticism of the text. In
many cases those who speak of the books of the New Testament
pay little regard to this matter. They discuss it almost as if they
thought that books were then produced, multiplied, bought and
sold much as they are to-day. This is the less blameworthy
from the circumstance that the history of these things has thus
far been much neglected, and that the sources for the history in
Greek circles are still largely a thing of conjecture, not well-
known and carefully studied documents. We know much more
about Latin than about Greek bookmaking. Our information
touching Greek work in this line must be searched for in the
byways and hedges of ancient Greek literature, in chance
observations made in some important historical or theological or
philosophical writings, and in the bindings and on the fly-leaves
of old books. Bearing in view the difficulty of finding the
materials for a judgment, we shall not be surprised to learn that
opinions upon this topic go to one of two extremes. Some
seem to suppose that books at that time, and especially among
the Christians, could only be made, this is to say, written, with
great difficulty and at large expense. They think of books at
that day as exceedingly rare and dear. Others swing the
pendulum to the opposite point, and declare that books were
then as plenty as grass in the East ; the figure would perhaps be
near the truth for one who should reflect upon the meagre
herbage of those dry regions. Applying this to Christians and
to the books of the New Testament, we are on the one hand
liable to hear that these books were seldom in the hands of any
but the wealthy and were at no time existent in great numbers,
or on the other hand that families, to say nothing of Churches,
— that families and individual Christians were in a position to get
and keep and use freely the sacred writings.

Nothing would be more dangerous than a too free generali-
sation here. Time and place varied the circumstances. Time
came into play, for the Christians were at first largely poor and
largely or often viewed with distrust and dislike by their

INTRODUCTION—/). BOOKMAKING 33

neighbours, and would therefore not be in a position to have
books made for them easily. At a later date, when more and
more people gathered around the preachers and the Christian
Churches grew apace, when the Christians began to be drawn
more from the better educated classes and to have a wider
acquaintance with literature and a greater facility in literary
methods, and when they had secured for themselves from their
heathen surroundings rather respectful tolerance or even admira-
tion than ill-confidence and disdain, they certainly could and
undoubtedly did order and use more books. That the place,
however, must be considered is a matter of course. That is true
even to-day in spite of all printing presses and publishing houses.
In large cities, and in particular in cities like Antioch, Tarsus,
Alexandria, in which many scholars taught and learned, studied
and wrote, books could be easily and quickly gotten. And in
such cities, among scholars of various climes, tongues, opinions,
religions, and habits, scribes would busy themselves less with an
inquisitorial consideration of their customers, and be at once
ready to copy any sheet, any book placed in their hands. In
the provinces, in small towns and villages, in out of the way
places it must have been usually difficult, very often impossible,
to get books, impossible to have them made. That does not
imply that people there could neither write nor read, ignorant
indeed of these arts as the majority of them may have been.
But there was a difference between writing a private letter or a
business letter and a bill, and writing a book. The difference
was similar to that found to-day between the usual writers in
private life and in business circles, and the art-writers who prepare
beautiful diplomas and testimonials for anniversaries.

In large towns the methods for the multiplication of writings
that were used for profane books often could be and probably
sometimes were applied to the books of the New Testament,
and that especially as time progressed during the third and the
opening fourth century. We have no exact information upon
this point, and we are therefore left to conjecture. I am inclined
to think that the usual bookmaking methods were seldom used
by Christians. It does not seem to me to be likely that a
heathen bookseller would, as a rule, apply himself with any great
interest to the multiplication of Christian writings. The reasons
that lead me to this conclusion are the following :
3

34 THE CANON

(a) It is worth while to cast a glance at the general position
of the Christians. It is true that antique life, modified by the
climate of those southern lands, was to a far greater extent than
life in northern Europe to-day spent before the eyes of other and
often strange men. The Italian in Naples carrying on his trade
on the sidewalk, or in a shed, or booth, or room opening with its
whole front upon the street, is a fair type of the Eastern tradesman.
In consequence, the life of the Christians in the East was to a
large measure a public life, a life seen and known of men. But
they were nevertheless for long decades in many places not
openly acknowledged and recognised as Christians. Here and
there, doubtless often, they met with tolerance and forbearance
or even good treatment from the hands of their neighbours and
of the authorities of the district, town, or city. That, however,
cannot screen the fact that they will in general have found it
prudent and often strictly necessary to keep the signs of their
faith in the background, not to allow them to attract open notice
when it was possible to avoid doing so. For this reason, then,
Christians will in many places have refrained from applying to
heathen scribes to copy the books of the New Testament.

(b) The last phrase brings an important point. It would not
be impossible that a scribe should become a Christian. But we
may be sure that, as a rule, directly in connection with their daily
bread, — remember, we have to do with book scribes not with
everyday letter writers, — they will have been, and have been
inclined to remain, heathen. Their work was the copying of
heathen books. They copied for a living, it is true, and may
often have not hesitated to take up Christian books. Never-
theless, they may well have preferred the heathen books that they
knew and liked, especially if they were writers of " known " and
not in general of " new " books. Then, too, the Christians may
have hesitated to let heathen scribes copy the writings because
they were so much prized by them, may have hesitated to place
them before the eyes and in the hands of men who would despise
and scoff at these precious books. And this hesitancy will not
seldom have been rendered greater by the fear that these scribes
could for lewd gain denounce them to the authorities as the
possessors of forbidden books, and give over the books into the
hands of their enemies.

(c) It must, in connection with the last sentence, be borne

INTRODUCTION— D. BOOKMAKING 35

in mind that although these books were sacred books, books
held in particular honour by a certain number of men, they
were in those days not in the least public books. These two
considerations were of moment, in particular, before the close of
the first quarter of the fourth century. Let us pass beyond that
date.

(d) After the greater influx of members in the early years
of the fourth century, there probably were enough self-denying
Christians at command who were able to write a book hand,
and therefore to copy the Christian books. It is to be re-
gretted that Eusebius, who caused fifty large manuscripts of
the Bible to be copied for, at the command of, the Emperor
Constantine, does not tell us to what scribes he entrusted
the work. Had he been in Constantinople, in Constantine's
town as they then began to name it, we should have turned
our eyes to the regular book trade. For it is very likely
that with the accession of Christianity to the throne many
a public scribe, many a bookseller would have been led to
embrace it, to take upon him the name that was no longer a
badge of disgrace, but had become a claim to preferment. In
Csesarea the case is different. It was, it is true, a large city, and
would have had at least some public scribes. But we must
remember that we have positive knowledge of Christian scholar-
ship here. Caesarea had long been a centre of interest for
Christian theologians, and had about a century before sheltered
the great Origen within its walls. He received there his ordina-
tion as presbyter, and when the fanatical Bishop of Alexandria
attacked him, he settled in Csesarea and gathered many pupils
around him. These Christians had a large library there, and we
have in various manuscripts references to books in that library.
Putting these things together, it seems fair to suppose that
Eusebius had in his town Christian scholars at command, and
Christian scribes, to write the fifty sacred volumes. Should any
one say that the size of the probable school and the cultivation
of the Christians there probably rendered the work of these
Christian scribes a thoroughly well-appointed and business-like
institution, not very different from and not inferior to the
establishments of profane booksellers, I shall at once concede
the point. If I am not mistaken, that is precisely the reason
why Constantine ordered the books for his proud capital in that

36 THE CANON

distant town in Palestine. He had doubtless made inquiries,
and had learned that Eusebius not only had in the library of his
deceased bosom friend Pamphilos, whose name he had added to
his own, the finest known copies, the most accurately written
copies, of the Bible, but that he also had at his command in his
neighbourhood, and probably within the precincts of his episcopal
residence, of the houses and grounds attached to his own palace,
the best scribes that were to be found in all that region. If
these surmises come near to the truth, that large book order on
the part of the emperor is likely to have made that scriptorial
establishment, that book-house, still more celebrated, and to have
led to other orders of a less imposing extent. That is, so far as
I can recall, the only case in early times in which we hear so
directly about the making of Christian books, and therefore, to
return to our point respecting the matter in general, we can only
say that we have no knowledge of any business man, of any
bookseller who occupied himself especially with making Bibles
or New Testaments or single books out of the New Testament.
Perhaps some scholar will one day find in an old manuscript new
information on this subject.

Whatever may have been the real facts in earlier days,
however near our guesses may come to the true state of the case,
we know certainly that at a later date the copying of the books
of the New Testament was a part of the work of ecclesiastics and
of monks. Of the many, many volumes which contain a de-
scription of the position of the scribe who copied them, by far
the larger number were from the classes named. In a great
number of manuscripts the scribe is said to be just upon the
point of becoming a monk. This remark is found so often that
I am inclined to think that frequently it must have been the rule
for a novice who was at the end of his probation and was
approaching his tonsure as monk, to copy a part of the Bible,
certain books of the New Testament, as a token of his proficiency
in external letters and of his devotion to the sacred volume.

E. What we Seek.

Setting aside for the moment our preliminary considerations
touching the existence of a canon, it is pertinent at this point

INTRODUCTION— E. WHAT WE SEEK 37

to try to define in detail what we must seek for. We are about
to enter upon the field of early Christian history. What do we
wish to look for in this field? We are not concerned now to
examine the piety of the members of the various rising Christian
societies. We are not going to ask in what rooms they held
their meetings. We are not intending to find out how they
appointed their leaders. All these things, and a great many
other things in themselves equally weighty and interesting, must
now remain untouched. Three objects call for our attention.

We must in applying ourselves to a view of the early Church,
inquire for traces of the existence of the books that we have
in our New Testament to-day. It is the existence that is first
to be sought for, some sign that the given book is, and if possible
that it is at a given place. In advance an ignorant man might
take it for granted that no book could possibly be used by the
Church without having been previously or at the time in question
made the object of a rigid examination, and without a minute
having been entered into the documents of the Church with
regard to the said book. But the Christians of that day were
not so critically inclined as that would indicate. At the very
first there are no tokens of anything of that kind. In con-
sequence we must be content with less clear evidence. We
must search in the literature of the Church — we should search
just as eagerly in profane literature if there were anything to be
found in it — for signs that these books have been used even
without their having been alluded to by name. A later treatise
might show or seem to show by the things spoken of in it that
the author of it had read some book now in the New Testament.
He might lean towards or lean upon the material given in it.
In some cases it might be possible to show by his style that
he had used the said book. It is unnecessary to press the
warning not to judge too hastily in a matter like this. The
differences between use and non-use are sometimes extremely
hard to be detected. A second stage in this inquiry after the
existence of the books is the search for quotations from them,
quotations giving their very words but not mentioning their
names. Here the thing seems to be and really is much clearer.
Yet even here great caution is needed, since sentences some-
times appear to be similar to each other or practically identical,
which prove on closer examination to have no direct connection

38 THE CANON

with each other. The words may be from a third, a previous
writing, or they may be a saying that was long current in various
circles before the words with which we compare them were
written. The third and satisfactory stage of the search after
proofs of the existence of the books, is the search for direct
mention of the books by name. A mention by name, particularly
if it be accompanied by a clear quotation from the text of the
book, is the best evidence that we can ask for. Of course, we
should be on our guard lest the name should be an interpolation
by a later writer who had been led or misled by the real or only
apparent quotation. It is plain that these three stages in the
inquiry for tokens of the existence of the books are not to be
conceived of as only possible of separate consecutive examination,
looking in each single book first for the one and then for the
other stage. In taking up a later book we may find first of
all the third and highest stage of the evidence. We should,
however, in spite of that examine the whole document, seeking
as well for the other two less important stages as corroborative
evidence.

The second object for attention, proved or conceded the
existence of the books, is the search for signs of an especial
valuation of these books on the part of Christians, and, if that
may be distinguished, on the part of authorised or authoritative
Christians, men of a certain eminence. Here we may place five
kinds of evidence before our minds. The first kind would be
the discovery that these books of the New Testament or that
any one of them is in literary use preferred to other books not
in our New Testament. We might find, for example, that they
in case of quotation were particularly emphasised, that they
were more frequently mentioned and treated with greater respect
than other books, that thev were spoken of as if they might
claim for themselves a special authority. Here we are again,
as we were at the first stage of the previous inquiry, looking for
something that may perhaps sometimes be rather felt than
directly seen, may lie in a turn of a sentence and not in a direct
statement. The second kind of evidence is that which in some
way shows that these books were settled upon as worthy of, or
were designated directly for, being read by Christians in private
life for their instruction, for their edification, or for their comfort
and consolation. The third kind of evidence is that which

INTRODUCTION— £. WHAT WE SEEK 39

proves their designation for public use in church. The weight
of the evidence for this point must be characterised more closely.
The difference between books for private reading and those for
public use will be plain by a moment's comparison with books
of to-day. To take an extreme example, it would be quite
conceivable that a clergyman should recommend to a parishioner
to read a certain novel of a specifically Christian tendency ; it
would not be conceivable that he should read this novel before
the congregation. There is nothing double-tongued or hypo-
critical in this. The clergyman knows, on the one hand, that
the person advised is capable of judging aright of the contents
of the book, whilst he could not know who might hear and
misunderstand it in the public assembly. But, on the other
hand, he also knows that the Church by ancient custom admits
no such literature to a place in the services. The fourth kind
of evidence is that which places these books upon the same level
as the books of the Old Testament. The importance of this
point is clear. The books of the Old Testament — we are not
able to say precisely which ones book for book — were accepted
by the early Christians as in a peculiar way given by God to
the Jews and through them to the Church. They were accepted
as the one authoritative collection of documents revealing to
men the mind of God. It must here be expressly stated that
we have not the least indication that the early Christians were
in any way inclined to inquire closely into the origin and authority
of the religious books in their hands. Their attitude towards
certain books not a part of the Old Testament proper goes to
show either that the Old Testament was then scarcely clearly
defined in its third division, or that the Christians freely used
other books as equal to those in that third division. But this
concession does not in the least alter the value of the point we
have now in view. It is for us of the greatest moment if we
can show that, or when we can show that, a book was considered
as on a par with the books of the Old Testament. The fifth
and last kind of evidence is that which directly calls these books
canonical or declared them to be among the number of the
canonised books. Just what that may mean is a topic for later
consideration after we have reached that point.

At the first glance it might seem as if that were all that we
had to do, as if no further steps were necessary to place the

40 THE CANON

books of the New Testament upon their proper and firm basis
of clear history, always supposing that we succeeded in finding
the best of the evidences just described. But this is not all.
If we stopped at this point the favorers and furtherers of what
they call " the New Testament outside of the received canon "
might come to us and claim that these books were in possession
of precisely the same evidence as that which we have discovered
in the case of the New Testament books. Now we have indeed
said at the outset that the books just referred to have no proper
place in New Testament introduction, and that still holds good.
But it is in no way possible to avoid an inquiry calculated directly
either to confirm or to annul the claim of these other writings
to be a part of the New Testament. This leads, then, to the
third object that claims our attention. We have sought after
signs of a special valuation of the books of the New Testament.
Are signs of such, of an equal, valuation to be found for any
other writings belonging to the early period of Christianity?
And if tokens of certain such signs can be pointed out for other
writings, have we other evidence, tokens of an opposite character
which force the conclusion that these writings are nevertheless
finally not to be considered as equal in authority to those of the
New Testament ? Here we have to ask about other books, then,
the same questions as before, touching the way in which they
are quoted, whether they are named for private reading or for
public services, and whether they are placed in conjunction with
the Old Testament. Should we find that some of the ques-
tions must be answered in the affirmative, we must then inquire
whether the given books were in any way thereafter so treated
as to show that these previous signs were not of a general
and authoritative value. We may find that they were definitely
distinguished by official statement from the books of the New
Testament. The fact that they must be thus put aside places
clearly before our eyes how very near they must have been to
the New Testament. No one would need to say that Homer
was not a part of the New Testament. We may find that they
are termed apocryphal. That word was originally one of respect.
It pointed to a book containing a secret doctrine but a lofty
one, a matter that was too hard, too deep, too high for the
common run of men, something that was only adapted to the
initiated. As time went on the Christians came to a clearer

INTRODUCTION— £. WHAT WE SEEK 41

vision, and formed the opinion that these books, supposed to be
so peculiarly valuable, were in reality much less valuable than
the books of the Church that were not apocryphal. Therefore
they used the word apocryphal at that later day as a term for
books that were not what they purported to be, were not genuine,
were not in the least as good as the publicly known and used
writings. It will be our duty to examine the case carefully, and
to decide whether or not we can approve of what they did.

These three inquiries exhaust in general our task in regard
to the early ages of the Church. In pursuit of them we must
endeavour as far as possible to distinguish between different
times and as well between different places. Four warnings may
be useful. The first is that we must strive not to mistake the
nature of the given section of history and confuse earlier con-
ditions with those of a later date. Imagine anyone's supposing
that Schopenhauer's writings were as eagerly read and as much
the object of public approval in the year 1819, when his great
work was issued, as they became towards the year i860, after
Frauenstadt had urged them upon public notice. The second
is that we must not let earlier conditions be made doubtful and
less clear by statements made about them at a later date. Our
means of judging of a period rtmoved from the vision of an
ancient writer are often better than his. The third warning
prevents our incautiously making the conditions and circum-
stances in one country a certain measure for the conditions and
circumstances in other countries. What is true of Egypt at a
given time need not be true of Italy at the same time. Conceive
of a writer in the future who should presuppose, in drawing
historical conclusions, that the internal conditions in Spain
were the same as those in Germany in the year 1907, that the
workmen were equally intelligent and equally successful in
securing their rights, and that the upper classes were equally
free from the domination of the Roman Catholic clergy. The
fourth draws a similar line within much narrower limits, and
forbids us to suppose that the circumstances in out of the
way places and districts are the same as in the large cities. For
all our post-offices and telegraph, this remains largely true even
to-day. There are small towns, sometimes curiously enough
quite near to large cities, that preserve to-day many of their old
characteristics. Such differences were in ancient times in the

42 THE CANON

lands that we have in view often extremely great. There was
often a gulf of race and speech, and therefore of character,
education, and customs, fixed between the city and the villages
around it.

If that is the course before us for the earlier ages, in which
by far the greater part of our task has to be performed, the later
periods will demand of us an account of the varying or unvarying
consistency with which they keep to or depart from the decisions
of their predecessors. It will perhaps sometimes be necessary
for us to ask whether given nations or societies have from the
first held to that which they at the present suppose that they
have ever believed and cherished.

43

I.

THE APOSTOLIC AGE,
33-90 (100).

When we approach the age of the apostles we must lay aside
for the moment modern ways of thinking, and strive to put
ourselves beside the first Christians as they went in and out of
the temple and Jerusalem and Nazareth and Capernaum. It is
hard for us to reduce ourselves to the simplicity of the time, of
the places, of the country, of the circumstances in which this
little but growing society found itself. For us, that was all the
enthusiastic opening of the movement that was later to fill and
possess the world of that day. For them, for those incipient
Christians, there was, it is true, a certain outlook of a coming
glory. But the death of their leader and the doubt and hesita-
tion, the little faith of many of the brethren dampened and
clogged the flight of their thoughts. The glad thought of the
trumpet sounding at midnight the return of their Jesus, a return
upon the clouds of light in the majesty of a king by the grace
of God, a return that would herald them to the rest of the world
as the favourites and confidential friends of this universal
sovereign, — this glad thought must before the lapse of many
years have given place to a quiet resignation, or at most to a
modest and longing wishfulness. Like the Thessalonians, they
saw one and another of their number recede into the darkness
of the tomb, though all of them were men who had counted upon
the open vision of that triumphant entry. They had thought
that they had a draft on sight, not one payable in two thousand
or ten thousand years. They were simple-minded people. What
did they think about the writings of the New Testament when
they were placed before their eyes? Let us consider the
case.

We regard the word as of preeminent importance. We have

44 THE CANON

not heard Jesus speak. Nor do we know anyone who has
heard Him. Neither our fathers nor our grandfathers wandered
with Him over the hills of Galilee. For us the written word is of
great weight ; and of right, for it is beyond price. But there is
something still more important than the written word. Did we
wish, as some people unfortunately often do, to limit the sayings
and the deeds, the events in those years of the Church's infancy,
to what we find written down in the New Testament, as if it
were a precise chronicle of all that the Christians experienced,
we should go astray. And we should err still more widely if we
refused to accept any testimony as to the written word in the
New Testament which we cannot read in so many sentences in
ecclesiastical authors. The Christian Church is more than a
book. Jesus was more than a word. Jesus, the Logos, the
Word, was the Life, and the Church is a living society, a living
fellowship. There is something sublime in such a fellowship that
passes through the ages in a living tradition. Our connection
with Jesus, which reaches now over more than eighteen hundred
years, does not rest upon the fact that He wrote something down,
which one man and another, one after another has read and
believed until this very day. So far as we know, He left no
writings, no notes behind Him. We do not read that He ever
told anyone to take down His words so as to give them to others
in white and black. We are not told that He ever wrote or
dictated even a letter. He lived and He spoke. Christianity
began with the joining of heart to heart. Eye looked into eye.
The living voice struck upon the living ear. And it is precisely
such a uniting of personalities, such an action of man on man,
that ever since Jesus spoke has effected the unceasing renewal of
Christianity. Christianity has not grown to be what it is, has
not maintained itself and enlarged itself, by reason of books
being read, no, not even by reason of the Bible's being read
from generation to generation. How many millions of the
Christians of past days could not read ! How many to-day
cannot read ! Christianity is first of all a life and has - been
passed along as life, has been lived, livingly presented from age
to age. The Christian, whether a clergyman or a layman, has
sought with his heart after the hearts of his fellow-men. A
mother has whispered the word to her child, a friend has spoken
it in the ear of his friend, a preacher has proclaimed it to his

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 45

hearers, and the child, the friend, the hearers have believed and
become Christians. Christianity is an uninterrupted life.

These considerations have certain practical consequences for
the inquiries in the criticism of the canon. It is certain that the
leaders of the Church, the more prominent men particularly in
the earliest ages, wrote very few books. Our researches will
probably show us that most of the books of the New Testament
were written at an early date. But it is not in the least to be
reasonably presupposed or expected that the Christians in the
years that immediately followed spent their time in writing books
that should convey to us what we wish to know about the
criticism of the canon. It was a period of tradition by word of
mouth. It was not tradition by book and eye, but tradition by
mouth and ear, that occupied the minds of those Christians in
their unresting, untiring efforts to spread the words of Jesus and
the story of His work. We sometimes hear complaints about the
scantiness of the literature that has been preserved to us, that
are uttered as if those early days of the Church had been days of
prolific literary activity, as if an exuberant literature had existed
which has been lost. Nothing of the kind was, so far as we can
see, the case. On the contrary, but little in comparison was
written. But this circumstance — and that is the point of these
remarks — cannot be turned into a good reason for doubting the
existence and use of the books of the New Testament at that
time. It was a time of busy proclamation of the gospel, and a
time at which the near end — in spite of all disappointed hopes —
was still looked for. Literary events, literary processes, literary
activity were far from their thoughts. The members of the
Christian Churches, of the little circles that were here and there
linking themselves together in the bond of fellowship, were to a
great extent poor and uneducated. The larger part of the first
Christians were neither in a position to buy nor able to read
books. They were in the habit of hearing, not of reading, news
that was of interest to them. They had no newspapers to allure
them from their unlettered state.

The Christians were, however, not all ill-educated. Their
leaders will doubtless in most cases have been able to read and
write. It might be supposed then that these leaders were eager
furtherers of Christian literary effort. We have no indications
that that was the case, and a little reflection, combined with what

46 THE CANON

has been already said about the making known of the good
tidings, will I think, lead to the conclusion that books and
'.iterature were among the things farthest from their thoughts.
For we must not forget that these leaders were not trained
officials, not even trained as officials in general, let alone literature.
They had not been recruited from the number of the head men
of the Jews. They were taken from the rank and file. And in
especial they were not scribes and lawyers, not used to dealing
day by day with books, with the Jewish book of books, the Law.
If they could read a passage in the synagogue and say a few
words about it, that would be the utmost that could be required
or asked of them.

Just at this point, having reminded ourselves of the fact that
neither the common run of Christians nor those who had by age
or social standing or some personal quality been placed in a
position of a certain trifling authority had any special literary
inclinations, it will be pertinent to reflect for an instant upon the
uncritical disposition of the age. This was not a peculiarly
Christian failing. Men such as those we have just glanced at
could not be expected to examine cautiously and precisely every
grain of evidence for books presented for Christian use. It
would be very strange if they thought of such a thing, But the
whole world of that day was credulous to a high degree. Clement
of Rome, and even Tacitus in a way, appear to have half-believed
the myth of the phoenix, and the majority of the people were
ready to believe the most improbable stories. I have spoken of
that age as being credulous. I might have said that all men,
with very few exceptions, are credulous. Men are credulous to-
day. People of birth and education go to inane but cunning
spiritists and fortune-tellers. And the poor of all countries
devour eagerly the wildest fancies of a lying messenger. To
return : the age with which we have to deal and the persons with
whom we have especially to do was not and were not critically
inclined. We must keep this in mind when we reflect upon
their acceptance and approval of writings that may happen to
have been offered for their consideration.

If anyone had asked a Palestinian Jewish Christian in the
year, let us say, 35 in what language a book meant for the use of
Christians should be written, I have little doubt that he would
have replied : "In Aramaic," although he might have called it

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 47

Hebrew or Syriac in a slovenly way of speaking. The sacred
books were indeed in good Hebrew, we might call it classical ;
and if the man questioned should have entertained the thought
that the books referred to should be equivalent to the books of
the Old Testament, he would, of course, have replied that they
must be in classical Hebrew. Even to-day in Arabic-speaking
countries the Arabic Christians wish the Scriptures read to them
and the sermons preached to them to be in classical Arabic,
even though the sermons, in fact, fall far short of any due classical
standards. The Western scholars who sometimes are surprised
by this fact and demur at it, should reflect that a Billingsgate
fishwoman, a London omnibus-driver, a Berlin cab-driver, and a
New York street arab would all alike be surprised, and I scarcely
think pleased, to hear the Scriptures read and sermons preached
in the jargon that they daily use. The Aramaic which Jesus
spoke was not from the east, not a product in Palestine of the
return from the exile in Babylon, but from the north, an im-
portation made probably during the first half of the second
century before Christ. It is likely that the same answer would
have been given by some Christians even at a later date.
Nevertheless we have every reason to believe that a large
number of the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine understood and
spoke Greek long before the time of Christ. The Aramaic
population was encircled by and, if the expression be not contra-
dictory, at least sparsely permeated by Greek-speaking inhabitants.
The seacoast was chiefly Greek. Joppa, now Jaffa, where the
Jews of the south touched the coast, was the scene of the Greek
myth of Perseus and Andromeda. Csesarea was Greek. Ptolemais
or Akka was, like several cities on the other, the eastern side of
Palestine, a Hellenistic city, and they all had been in existence
for centuries. As for literature, Ascalon produced four Stoic
philosophers. The Epicurean Philodemus was from Gadara, and
so was the Cynic Menippos. Civil officials and military officers
were stationed here and there. Heathen plays were well known,
there being a theatre and amphitheatre at Jerusalem, a theatre,
an amphitheatre, and a hippodrome at Jericho, a stadium at
Tiberias, and a hippodrome at Taricheae, the Pickelries. Add
to that the movements of Greek-speaking traders and workmen.
Consider, further, the proselytes, the synagogues of the Libertines,
the Cyreneans, the Alexandrians, and the Cilicians named in

48 THE CANON

Acts. From all this hasty glimpse we see that Greek must have
been in Palestine a very well-known language. The effect of the
Greek elements, just alluded to, upon the Aramaic-speaking
population can only be duly appreciated by taking into view the
small extent of the country and the resultant compulsion the
Arameans were under to meet and deal with Greeks. From
Jericho to Joppa itself was not two days for a fast traveller. It
is interesting to observe that the military governor, the colonel,
in the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of Acts, is surprised
to find that Paul, whom he had taken for a wild Egyptian, can
speak Greek, while in a reverse direction it is clear that the mob
is surprised to hear him speak Aramaic. The interesting thing
is that the mob had evidently expected to understand him, even
if he had spoken Greek. So soon as Christianity began to
address itself to the Greek-speaking Jews outside of Palestine,
the first thought of any author of a letter or of a book designed
for general circulation will have been to write it in Greek. For
that language would reach almost all Jews, even in Palestine,
saving a certain part of the poorer classes.

The Jews who heard Jesus and believed on Him, will at the
first moment not have dreamed of the production of a literature, of
a series of books for their own particular use and benefit. Then
and long after that, probably so long as the temple continued to
stand, they remained good Jews and did their duty, observed the
rites due from them as Jews. If anyone had asked after their
sacred books they would have pointed to the Old Testament
without a thought that anything more could be desired. They
had heard Jesus. They continued to be Jews in union with
Jesus. They were fully satisfied with the Scriptures which they
possessed. No one had asked Jesus to write a continuation of
the Old Testament. What could be desired? Should a new
law be drawn up ? Jesus had declared that the old law should
outlast the heavens. Should a new prophetical book be added ?
Jesus had announced the close of the prophecy : " until John."
As time passed by there came, however, two literary movements,
one in gathering at least fragments of the words of Jesus, the
other in the supplying of certain needs of the Christians by
means of letters from the apostles or other Christian leaders;
but neither of these movements had at the first moment a
trace of an intention to continue, to complete, or to supplement

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 49

the sacred books of the Jews which were also the sacred books
of the Christians. The earliest Christian authors did not for an
instant suppose that they were writing sacred books.

If we go back in thought to these years in which the Christians
are gradually growing more and more numerous, in which the
many who had been in Jerusalem at that great Whitsunday were
being multiplied not only in Palestine but also far and wide
throughout the Roman Empire, we must be cautious in assuming
for them too large a number of* adherents at the first moment.
Eastern people are poor counters, and easily exceed the facts with
their tens and hundreds and thousands. The Churches were
small gatherings, chiefly of not very well educated men and
women. These Churches were not on the lookout for books.
They had among them men who had seen and heard Jesus, or at
least His apostles, the Twelve. Some of the Churches really had
members of the inner circle, of those Twelve, among them It
could not be otherwise, for the Twelve neither died nor were killed
all at once at the time of the death of Stephen. Even at the
time at which Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians — and
that was probably in the year 53 — it is clear that no Gospels were
known to him. He says in that letter (1 Cor. 153), speaking of
his preaching, that he had passed on to the Corinthians, when he
first went among them, that which he had received, namely, that
Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and so on. He
does not say that he had read this, but that he had received it and
that is here that he had heard it. Ananias and others had told
him about it. As little does he tell them to take up the Gospels
in their hands and see for themselves whether his doctrine agrees
with the books. It seems to me that this altogether does away
with the opinion formed by some, that Paul spent his time in
Damascus and Arabia immediately after his conversion in reading
a Gospel written by Matthew. We have, then, no reason to
suppose that Paul or the Corinthians, and therefore as little to
suppose that Peter or the Christians at Jerusalem and Antioch,
had in the year 53 Gospels before them. It would, however, be
quite possible that somewhere about that time one and another
Christian had begun to think of using his pen in a limited way.

Before inquiring what these possible writers probably would
have written, I must touch upon one other matter, which I prefer
to mention here, instead of giving it in connection with the Jewish
4

50 THE CANON

canon, because it will throw light upon the circumstances of the
earlier Christian societies. We saw above that the Jews had
sacred writings in three parts — Law, Prophets, Writings. It is, I
think, important to emphasise the fact that we are by no means
authorised to suppose that every Jewish synagogue had all the
books of all three of these parts, of course in the third part all
the books that at any given time belonged to this part. It is very
easy to-day to buy an Old Testament and a New Testament and
both may be in one volume. At that day the whole of the Old
Testament filled several rolls of different sizes, and I feel sure
that many a village synagogue will have been glad of the possession
of the Law and the Prophets, and have not been able to buy all
the other rolls. The Psalms they will probably have had. Even
if anyone should hesitate to agree with me on this point in respect
to the smaller Jewish synagogues, I think no one will fail to con-
cede, that when we turn to the few Christians who at the first
here and there separated themselves as Christians, for the purpose
of having Christian worship, from the synagogues in their town
or village, we must not think of them as able to have the Law,
the Prophets, and the Writings. I say separated, it would perhaps
be better for at least many places to say : were forced to leave
the synagogues. In time the little circle will have succeeded in
getting at least certain parts of the Old Testament for liturgical
purposes, but it may often have been a long while before that
was possible. Where they were still allowed to go to the
synagogue they will still have continued to go to it on Saturday,
on the Sabbath, and then have had their own special Christian
services on the Lord's Day, on Sunday. It was this that led, I
suppose, in the early Church, and I doubt not at an exceedingly
early date, to Christian services on Saturday or the Sabbath, — we
must quit the pernicious habit of calling the Lord's Day by the
Jewish name for Saturday, — services that were only secondary to
the Sunday services. It was this that led to the determination
not only of Sunday but also of Sabbath Gospel lessons, and the
two series are still to be found in the lesson books of the older
Churches. To return to our point, the early Christian societies
will often not have had all the books of the Old Testament at
their command, and will therefore have had still less inclination
to look beyond that for new books. What they heard about
Jesus they heard from the living voice of the wandering preachers

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 5 1

who were called apostles, and that was fresh, varied, interesting,
something quite different from the rolls of the synagogue. It is
a strange thought for us : Christians who had no written Gospels.
To think that Paul the great apostle probably never saw a written
Gospel ! He had heard the gospel, not read it ; heard it from
Christians in Damascus, seen it in heavenly visions, not read it.
What a preacher he must have been for all his weakness ! But
he had not a sign of a commentary out of which to draw his
sermons, much less ready-made skeletons of sermons, and not
even a written text.

The words of Jesus and the story of Jesus' work were then
the great thing. That was what men cared to hear. And when
a Christian sharpened his reed pen and dipped it in the ink and
began to write on a piece of papyrus, he probably first wrote down
some of the words of Jesus. What would the curiosity-mongers
give for that pen and for that first piece of papyrus with the first
words of Jesus that were written down for future reading ? One
Christian may have written down a parable which had especially
pleased him. Another will have told with his pen of a miracle of
Jesus. Another may have let his memory and his pen dwell
upon a journey made with Jesus, from Nazareth to Tiberias,
from Jerusalem to Jericho. Later other parables, miracles, and
journeys will have been added. More than one such frail and
fleeting little papyrus roll will have been written upon, of many
of which we have never heard a word and of which we shall never
see a line. Some wrote in Aramaic, probably the most of them
at the first, for the most of the hearers of Jesus will have been
Arameans. Is it not strange that the Twelve did not write down
the words of Jesus ? But perhaps they did without our hearing
of it. It is likely that one of them in particular wrote quite a
book. That was Matthew. We shall hear more about it later.
He doubtless wrote a book that contained a great many of Jesus'
words, and told in between in scattered sentences what Jesus did
as He went about Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

It was probably Paul who first wrote one of the longer books
of the New Testament. But he did not begin with the very
largest. We do not know when he began to write, and we do not
know whether we have his first writings or not. One thing we
are sure of — we have not all that he wrote. He began by trying
to comfort and reassure the Christians in the little Church at

52 THE CANON

Thessalonica, perhaps in the year 48. And then he wrote to the
Corinthians in the year it may be 53, and then to the Romans it
may be in the year 54, and then to the Galatians, and so on. It
is not entirely beyond the pale of possibility that Peter and that
James the brother of Jesus wrote such a letter before Paul wrote
to the Thessalonians. So far as we can judge from the very little
that the books of the New Testament tell us about Paul, he
stopped preaching and stopped writing letters and went to heaven
about the year 64, and that book of Matthew that was referred
to above may easily have been written somewhere about that
time.

Matthew's Aramaic book, or the Aramaic book about Jesus in
Galilee, whether Matthew wrote it or not, must before more than
a year or two had passed, perhaps before more than a month or
two had passed, have been translated into Greek. Now that the
book was before the Christians' eyes, they will have wondered
that no one had thought to write it at an earlier day. That book
did not tell about the passion. The passion did not belong to
Galilee. Before long it became clear that the Christians needed
a more complete account of the words and deeds of Jesus. This
need John Mark the Jerusalemite, the cousin of Barnabas, the
friend of Paul and of Peter, seems to have felt and tried to supply
in our second Gospel, written perhaps about the year 69. Some-
one else, we have not the most remote idea who it may have been,
took up the story a few years later and wrote our first Gospel.
Still later Luke wrote the third Gospel and the book of Acts. It
was not till nearly the end of the century that the Fourth Gospel
appeared.

We are at the close of the apostolic age. We see the
numerous little Churches, that is to say, companies of Christians,
scattered over the Roman Empire, meeting from week to week
in private houses and exhorting one another to a firm faith, a
good life, and a living hope. A number of books have been
written that these Christians find particularly valuable. Part of
them look a little like histories, part of them are simply letters, one
of them is a book of dreams. But for all these writings the thing
which holds the attention of the Christian Churches is still the
living word, the weekly sermon, if the given Church be so for-
tunate as to have a preacher every week.

So far as we can see, there is as yet no collection of Christian

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 53

books. That must soon come. We have nearly closed the first
century. The apostolic age laps over on to the post-apostolic
age. It closes about the year 100, but the post-apostolic age
begins about the year 90. The reason for this double boundary
lies in the wish to include in the former age the Fourth Gospel and
in the latter age the letter of the Church at Rome to the Church
at Corinth, the letter called Clement's of Rome.

Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in his second letter, 2 Thess.
215, that they should stand firm, and that they should hold fast
to the traditions that they had been taught either by word of
mouth or by a letter from him. That was the signature of the
early age of the Church. It will still follow us into the second
period. But a new principle is preparing, or the foundation is
being laid for a new principle, that will recognise a crystallisation
of the traditions. The enthusiasm of the simple Christian
brethren of the first years is to fade into a cool and steady service
under a new law and a new hierarchy. The living voice of the
preacher, of the apostle hastening from place to place, is to give
way to the words read from a written page and to uncertain
comments thereupon.

Between the years in which the first books of the New
Testament were written and the close of the apostolic period
about a half a century had elapsed, which would be for us as far
as from i860 to to-day. During that time the books of the New
Testament were probably most of them written. Before we leave
this age, we should ask whether we can find any signs of what
might be called self-consciousness in these writings of the New
Testament. That is to say, we know of, or suspect the existence
of but one book, outside of the books of the New Testament, that
was probably or possibly written during this period. And there-
fore when we ask if there are any signs at this time of the exist-
ence of these books, it amounts to much the same as asking
whether these books give any tokens of noticing their own exist-
ence, any tokens of a knowledge of any Christian literature. The
passage already alluded to, in which Paul refers to the traditions
which the Thessalonians received by word or from his letter, is
scarcely more than a shadow of self-consciousness of these
writings, since he there is speaking so thoroughly practically, and
not in the least claiming book value and permanent value for his
letter. But the phrase, the sentence, is nevertheless well worth

54 • THE CANON

remark, for in fact there lies at the back of this command to them
the thought that what he has written to them is normative or that
his letter is normative. The opening of the third chapter of the
Second Epistle of Peter with its reference to the First Epistle and
to the command of the apostles, and then the words about Paul
and his Epistles, I pass over here because I do not think that this
Epistle belongs to this age. Luke at the beginning of his Gospel
mentions many other attempts at Gospels. That may refer in part
to various private attempts such as we have already spoken of.
It undoubtedly refers, if I mistake not, to the book of Matthew,
the Aramaic one that was translated into Greek, and also to the
Gospel of Mark, and it is possible although not very likely that it
has in view, only by hearsay, our Gospel according to Matthew
and the Gospel to the Hebrews. In no case is the word " many "
here to be taken in the sense of a very large number, so that we
should think of twenty or fifty Gospels. Many means more or
less according to the thing spoken of, and here a half a dozen
would be an abundant number. The one book mentioned a
moment ago as possibly belonging to this period but not found
in the New Testament is the Gospel of the Hebrews or to the
Hebrews. We know, however, very little about it. It may very
well be that Aramaic book by Matthew, in which case it is in the
main or perhaps entirely to be found in our synoptic Gospels. It
may be something quite different. It will probably come to light
some day in Egypt or in Armenia or in Syria, and then we shall
know more about it

55

II.

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE.

90-160.

In passing over to the age after that of the apostles, we need
first of all to form for ourselves some conception of the way in
which the Christians looked at the books which they found in
their hands. We are interested to know, or at least to try to
fancy, what they thought of them and why they kept them. It
has been to such an extent the habit in the Christian Church to
throw a cloud of glory about these books, that it is difficult to
bring our minds down to what it is likely were the hard facts of
the case. The guidance and care of the Holy Spirit has been
emphasised so strongly that we must needs suppose that each
book was from its day of writing definitely marked as a future
member of the illustrious company, and was most scrupulously,
we might say masoretically, guarded and transmitted to our day.
We know, however, now that this has not been the course of
things. If we turn back to the early days, we may dalmly say
that it is in every way probable that one or another letter of the
apostles, that would humanly speaking have, or seem to have,
afforded us as much instruction, comfort, and help as certain
Epistles in the New Testament, has simply been lost. The early
Christians had no thought of history, no thought of an earthly
future. They were soon to cut loose from all their surroundings.
Why should they then save up books, or rather save up letters.
They had read and heard the given letter. That was all. They
knew what was in it. No more was needed. Why keep the
letter ? Precisely the opposite may now and then have happened,
namely that a little Church read a letter to pieces ; unrolled the
papyrus and rolled it up again until it fell apart, and that with-
out setting about copying it so as to keep it in a new form. The
letters that the apostles wrote to them were not " Bible." They

56 THE CANON

were the letters of their favourite preachers. Some members of
the Church were enthusiastic about the apostle, others were not,
others liked another apostle or another preacher very much
better. The very man in the little community who because of
his better education came to have charge of a letter received
might be a friend of some other preacher, and therefore neglect
the letter of an apostle. In the case of the Epistles which we
still possess, some were surely kept with the greatest care, read
duly by the members of the Church, read in occasional meetings,
lent to neighbouring Churches, copied off for distant Churches,
and copied off for themselves as soon as they began to grow
old and were threatened with decay. No one will have
given a thought to the original the moment that a new copy was
done.

The Gospels were different. They were not sent to Churches
or to anybody else. No one got one unless he ordered it. And
they did not convey to the reader merely the words of an
apostle, but the words and deeds of Jesus. During the apostolic
age there will not have been so very many copies of the
Gospels made. For the Churches were poor, and books from
which to copy may not have been anywhere near. Most of
all, they then had the wandering preachers who told them
about Jesus, and therefore the written Gospels were the less
necessary.

Certainly, however, these writings came to be read in the
public meetings. The word public has for this primitive time, it
is true, a strange sense, since the groups were often so very small,
and were always in private houses; but it was nevertheless,
within the limits of the case and as the forerunner of the later
services in Church edifices, a public reading, not the reading of
one man for himself or for his room mate or for his family, but
the reading of a book before a duly collected group of men and
women. We must consider carefully this early reading of books
in the Christian assemblies. If I am not mistaken, we shall in it
see the process of authorisation of books from the first to the
last step.

Going back to the beginning, to the first time that a letter
from an apostle, let us say Paul, was received by a Church, let us
say Thessalonica, we can imagine the stir it will have made. The
little group will have been complete ; no one will have stayed at

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— SCRIPTURE IN CHURCH 57

home that evening. The letter was eagerly read and eagerly
heard, and then they probably talked it over with each other.
They perhaps read it again the next night and the next. The
Church at Bercea and other Churches, possibly as far as Philippi,
may have borrowed it or asked for copies of it, although we do
not suppose that at this early moment the borrowing and copying
were so common as they soon came to be. Gradually the letter
will have been in a measure laid aside. The members of the
company knew it almost by heart. The second letter may have
reached them. That this letter was in any way secret, will not
have entered their minds. The same thing happened in the
other Churches that received letters from apostles. As time
went on, as one apostle and then another passed away, some
Churches here and there with a member or two who had a special
liking for books or for documents, probably got all the letters
they could reach copied for them and then kept them together,
reading them as occasion might offer, either from beginning to
end, or the particular part of the letter which appealed or applied
to the moment.

During all this time, and doubtless well on into the second
century at least in many districts, the word was still preached in
the passing flight of the wandering preachers, the apostles. Little
by little it will have become known that the Gospels had been
written. These Gospels will at first have been circulated in the
immediate neighbourhood of the place in which each was written,
and then have soon struck the great lines, if they were not
already on one of them, and have reached Rome and Jerusalem
and Alexandria. Wherever a Gospel was received, Christians will
have compared its tenor with that which they had heard by
word of mouth. But for a while the living voice of the evangelis-
ing preacher will have been preferred to the dead letter in the
book. Many Churches will for a long while have had no Gospel
or only one Gospel, and only after much waiting have gotten
more. Church after Church, group after group of Christians had
then a Gospel and an Epistle or two, a few Epistles. The tendency
of the intercourse between the Churches was towards an increase
in the collection of books ; now one now another new one was
added by friends to the old and treasured store of rolls. It is
totally impossible to give any accurate idea of the rapidity of the
accretion, totally impossible to say when it was that a number of

58 THE CANON

Churches secured all four Gospels and the greater part of the
Epistles. Each one must make his own estimate. I am inclined
to think that about the close of the first century or in the first
twenty years of the second century — that is indefinite enough —
the four Gospels were brought together in some places. The last
Gospel to be written, the Fourth Gospel, must have been at once
accepted, and that if I am not mistaken as the work of John from
the Twelve, and have had great success.

Let us turn to the worship, the public worship of the
Christians. It need only be mentioned in passing that there was
nothing like a regular order of services that prevailed all over, in
Palestine as well as in Spain. There will have been every
description of order of exercises, from the silence of the Quakers
of to-day to the more elaborate liturgy or order which we shall
now mention. I am persuaded that the ordinary services
consisted of four parts, comprising (a) that which men offered,
said, laid before God ; (6) that which God said to men ;
(c) that which a man said to men ; and (d) a meal, the love-
feast, closing with the breaking of bread, the Lord's Supper.
The division (a), man to God, will have consisted of prayer, free
if possible, often probably with much out of the Psalms, and,
after the prayer, a hymn or a psalm. The division (&), God to
men, will have consisted originally of the Scripture reading, and
that, of course, from and only from the Old Testament. The
division (c), man to men, contained the sermon or an address of
some kind, an exhortation. This must have been in general the
point at which the gospel was preached, at which the life, deeds,
and words of Jesus were brought before the hearers. Then
followed part four. Remember, I am not pretending to say that
the order of services from instant to instant must have been
(a) (&) (c) (d). All I am contending for is, that the services con-
sisted of these four parts, of these four thoughts, if anyone prefers
the expression, and that all that occurred during the course of the
service, in whatever order, belonged under one head or another
out of the four, and that anything new that might be introduced
must vindicate for itself a place in some one of the four divisions.
Now it is evident that the reading of letters from apostles, and,
when the Gospels were there, the reading of the Gospels, must
have taken place under the third part or (r), for that was all : "Man
to Men." No one will object to the definition of this division for

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— PUBLIC WORSHIP 59

the Epistles, and every one will grant that the Gospels also belong
here, so soon as I call attention to the fact that the traditions
concerning Jesus always must have been given under this heading.
No one had at that time thought of calling the Gospels or the
Epistles a part of Holy Writ ; the Old Testament was that. The
Gospels were the written sermon, that is to say, the story of Jesus
written down instead of merely being on the lips. The Epistles
were an exhortation in writing. Whether the Christians at the
beginning used the Jewish Parashahs and Haphtarahs, the old
sections for the law and the prophets, or some new divisions of
their own, does not concern us. All that we have to settle is that
originally in the Christian Church the part (Z>), God to man, con-
sisted solely of Old Testament lessons.

It was, if I do not err, during the post-apostolic age that this
was changed, that the contents of the part (b) came to be enlarged.
That can scarcely have come about in any other way than the
following. The Gospels and the Epistles, such of each as the
Churches had, were read gradually more and more regularly.
The living tradition on the lips of wandering preachers or of
more stationary clergymen, lost day by day in freshness as the
years passed on and the age of the apostles receded into a dim
distance. At last it became clear, at first it may be in one
Church and little by little then in others, that the new writings
had a meaning for Christian life which the books of the Old
Testament did not possess. Were the Old Testament books
authoritative, then must these also be authoritative. Did God
speak through the old books, then must it be His voice that was
heard in the new books. Thus it came about that the Gospels
and the Epistles passed from the third part of the services to the
second part. The word of God to men was to be found as well
in them as in the Old Testament. In the third part of the
services the sermon remained. Sometimes a bishop's letter,
sometimes a letter from another Church was added in that place.
That was : Man to Men.

It can scarcely have been at that time, but at a later date,
which we are thus far not able to determine, that the Old
Testament lessons were almost entirely excluded from the
services of the Church on Sabbaths and on Sundays. Aside from
a few, comparatively few, lessons on special days, they were
remanded to the week days of the great fast, of Lent.

60 THE CANON

Before we really enter upon the examination of the literature
of this period, it is desirable to say a word or two about doctrine,
even if we are in the present inquiry not concerned with doctrinal
questions. In discussing early Christian writings, objections are
often raised touching the character, the genuineness, or the
value of the testimony of a book because of an alleged one-
sidedness in it. This objection takes in by far the greater
number of cases the form of disparaging or distrusting or
disowning what is alleged to be Pauline. It is declared or
assumed that the ground story of the Christian Church was
Petrine, and that only a peculiar connection with Paul personally
or with his writings, and only a distinct aversion to Peter and
as well an antagonistic attitude towards the old mother centre at
Jerusalem can possibly lead, during the prefatory years to the
Old Catholic Church, to any sentences or paragraphs or whole
books that seem to agree with the views of the Apostle to the
Gentiles. This is not the place to discuss this question, yet it
appears to me to be important to emphasise at this point the
opinion that I personally hold. It is my impression that the
story of Paul's arrest at Jerusalem, while carrying out in the
temple a vow suggested to him by the leaders of that one centre,
thoroughly disposes of the notion that there existed any difference
of doctrine between them that could conflict with the love that
they will at Jerusalem have entertained for the man who kept
bringing to them the gifts that he had got for them from the
largely heathen-Christian Churches abroad. Further, it is to be
considered that Paul was the only one who had with a facile pen
spread out on broad lines a conception of Christian views as to
salvation and as to life. The conclusion that I draw from this is,
that this Pauline Christianity was, if I may so speak, the only
Christianity of the time immediately preceding his death.
Nevertheless, no one at that uncritical period will have
thought of its being peculiarly Pauline. It was Christianity,
and that was the end of the matter.

At the outset it is well for us to consider what we may justly
look for in the books of this time that will be of use to us in
proving the existence and defining the authoritative character of
the writings of the New Testament. To put the extreme case,
some critics seem to look for such a completeness of reference
as the only due and acceptable testimony to the presence and

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— QUOTATIONS 6l

valuation of the New Testament, that a writer of the post-
apostolic age could only have met their demands by writing his
own thoughts on the margin of a copy of the entire New
Testament, Matthew to Revelation, prefacing his work : " Citing
as in duty bound the whole of this sacred volume, I proceed to
discuss . . ." Others are apparently surprised to find that any
author fails to name or at least quote most accurately every
solitary book in the New Testament, and they find the lack of
both for any book a sure sign that the missing book was not then
in existence or not then known to the writer. So far from that
does the everyday literary habit diverge, that we must on the con-
trary be profoundly grateful when an early writer mentions any
one of the books by name, and find great satisfaction and security
even if he does not mention the name, if he offer us sentences
which, even if re wrought with editorial licence, clearly point to
the said book as their source. We should never forget that these
writers did not write for the purpose of giving us proofs of the
authority of the New Testament books. How many Christian
essays might be found to-day that on ten or on thirty pages
contain few or no quotations from the New Testament, and no
mention of the author of a New Testament book ! And that
leads me to emphasise the circumstance, that we must keep the
thought of a direct quotation in many places in all our researches
very much in reserve. If we do this we shall also hesitate to
blame a writer for careless quotation, and be slow to suppose
that slightly altered phrases point to other books or other texts
than those which we have in hand.

It would be fitting to speak of three degrees of references to
books. In the first and lowest degree the reference is to the
speaker or writer, at least often, a latent, a sub-conscious,
an unconscious reference. He has, at some time or other,
read the book in question, and a phrase has pleased him,
has fastened itself in his brain. Now that he comes to
speak or to write upon the topic, this sentence appears on the
surface. It is not clear to him whence it comes. Perhaps it
does not even occur to him that the words are not his own.
The words are, after all, not exactlj the same as in the book
referred to. Some of them are his. The phrase has a new cast.
But for the man who knows the source the thing is plain. This
kind of citing may grow so distant or so shadowy as to be little

62 THE CANON

more than an allusion. In the second degree the act of quoting
may become quite clear to the writer. He may, however, at the
instant not know precisely whence he has drawn the words or
precisely what the original sentence is. He knows fully enough
to make with the phrase the point that he has in mind, and he
writes the words down without an instant's hesitation. He is
not trying to quote, he is trying to express himself. It is totally
indifferent to him whether the quotation be exact or not. Let us
put it on high ground. The other author has had a divine
thought, and has uttered it. He has the same thought, and he
utters it too. To whom the words belong, no one cares. The
third degree is that in which the writer goes to the book and
copies the precise words down with painful accuracy, and names
the book and the passage. We must always be thankful for
what we thus get, for the insight into the earlier writings.

This post-apostolic age opens with a book that excites our in-
terest and calls for our admiration. It is a letter, but not a letter
of one man to another. The Church of God that is living in this
foreign world at the city of Rome, writes to the Church of God
living in this foreign world at the city of Corinth. The Church
itself could not in its corporate character seize a pen or even
dictate a letter. Tradition tells us that a Christian named Clement
wrote it. A certain halo encircles him. He is said by some to
have been from a Jewish, by others from a heathen family ; he is
fabled to have had imperial connections; he is claimed as a follower
of Peter and as a follower of Paul ; he is the representative of law,
of the specifically Roman characteristic, in the growing Church,
and a number of writings gathered around his name, claiming
for themselves his authority. There is no very good reason for
doubting that he had himself heard the apostles, at least the two
great apostles. This letter is probably from his pen. Someone
in Rome wrote it, and we are bound to accept him till a better
suggestion can be made. So far as appears, it was written about
the year 95. The writer, in order to have been set to do this
task, is to be supposed to be one of the older men in the Roman
society. He may have been fifty or sixty years old. If only
fifty, he will have been about twenty years old when Paul suffered
martyrdom ; if he were sixty, he will have been thirty. The
Roman Church claims him among her first bishops, and I do not
doubt that he was the most prominent or influential man in that

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— CLEMENT OF ROME 63

Church in his day, little as I suppose that anyone up to that
time in that Church had received the title of bishop. Indeed this
seems to me to be made plain by the letter itself. All in all, little
as we know about him in detail, and much as was attached to his
name by the fertile fancy of his admirers, he must have been an
exceptionally strong and good man. His letter is an extremely
valuable document. It is well written, and contains some
beautiful passages. Further high opinion of Clement's literary
powers is found in the fact that, as Origen relates, he was con-
sidered by some to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The value of the testimony of Clement in this letter is
enhanced by the fact that he is writing in the name of the
Christians at Rome and to the Christians at Corinth. This
causes his words to pass for both of these Churches. He knows
about the Church at Corinth, and refers to their Church lessons,
as we shall see. His letter shows no tokens of a bias towards
one apostle or another, no inclination to use but a single series
of the books of the New Testament. His language is that of the
educated Greek Christian. Certain words were probably sug-
gested to his mind by passages in the New Testament, now in
Peter, now in Paul, now in John. We might say that various
paragraphs or sentences seemed to be coloured by the cast of
mind shown in New Testament writings, were it not that the style
is so good and so vigorous that we have the feeling that the
author in treating the points in question has of himself risen to
the level of the authors who, in the New Testament, dealt with
the same thoughts. In his exquisite chapter (ch. 49) on love he
touches Proverbs, but through the medium of First Peter : " Love
covereth a multitude of sins " ; and at the same time he reminds
us of James. With his plea for subjection to other Christians he
coincides with Titus and First Peter and Ephesians. When he
refers to what is pleasing, good, and acceptable, before Him that
made us, he reminds us of First Timothy, though he may simply
be using a common form of speech.

Again he writes (ch. 46) : " Or have we not one God and one
Christ, and one spirit of grace shed upon us, and one calling in
Christ ? " That is one of the cases of the use of words without
direct quotation. Undoubtedly it was Ephesians and First Cor-
inthians that led him to use these words, but no one of the
passages in those letters would have fitted in precisely. In just

64 THE CANON

the same manner he uses (ch. 35) Paul's words from the latter
part of the first chapter of Romans : " Casting away from our-
selves all unrighteousness and lawlessness, avarice, strifes, both
malice and deceit, both whisperings and backbitings, hatred of
God, pride, and insolence, both vainglory and inhospitality. For
those who do these things are hated of God ; and not only those
doing them, but also those agreeing to them." How absurd it
would be for any one to say that that was a new text for the
passage in Romans ! When Clement quotes (ch. 34), " Eye hath
not seen," and so on, it is probably taken from First Corinthians.
It is, at any rate, not drawn directly from Isaiah. Perhaps it
comes from the Revelation of Elias, but we do not know. The
most pleasing allusion to the Epistles is to that very Epistle to
the Corinthians. Clement says (ch. 47) : "Take up the Epistles
of Saint Paul the apostle. What did he first write to you at
the beginning of the gospel ? In truth, he wrote to you spirit-
ually both about himself and Cephas and Apollos, because even
then there were parties among you." That is very good indeed.
Observe how he calls Paul's message a gospel. Perhaps the
thought may arise, that Clement only treated the Epistles in
this free way, and that because he knew the apostles, had
known them personally. Not at all. He quotes, and that
clearly from memory, and mixes up into one, two passages from
Matthew, one of which is also found in Mark and Luke. It
is not another text, it is a free quotation, introduced by the
words (ch. 46) : " Remember the words of Jesus our Lord : for
He said : Woe to that man. It would have been better for
him not to have been born than to offend one of My elect ; it
would have been better for him to have been bound round with
a millstone and have been sunk into the sea than to offend one
of My little ones." In another place he makes a thorough
combination of various verses from Matthew, partly found also
in Luke. He introduces the passage thus (ch. 13): "Especially
remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, which he uttered while
teaching meekness and long-suffering." It was indeed "re-
membering," but not accurately. Clement continues : " For he
spoke thus : Be merciful, that ye may be mercifully treated ;
forgive, that ye may be forgiven. As ye do, so will be done to
you. As ye give, so shall be given to you. As ye judge, so
shall ye be judged. As ye show mildness, so shall ye be mildly

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— CLEMENT OF ROME 65

treated. With what measure ye mete, with it shall be measured
for you." He then calls that a command and orders. The most
interesting thing about Clement is his close acquaintance with
the Epistle to the Hebrews. If we could only know all about it
that he knew. He uses its words, sometimes he quotes the Old
Testament with its help, sometimes he follows its order of
thought, sometimes he changes the thought round. It was said
a moment ago that Clement was suggested by someone before
Origen as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The man
who proposed that was doubtless impelled by the contemplation
of this free and intimate use of that Epistle. But we have no
reason to suppose that Clement wrote it. He knew the Epistle
well and he liked it amazingly, as every Christian and every lover
of brilliant writing should love it. Do we find in this letter any
traces of other writings that seem to have been of the same
character as the New Testament books? No. There are
several allusions to passages that we cannot verify, some of them
at least closely attached to an " it is written," but they are
probably from apocryphal books. One is, for instance, attached
to a passage from Exodus, another to a verse from the Psalms,
although" the context of the passages exhibits nothing of the
kind.

What have we gained from this early work of a Christian who
was in a position to know all that was going on in the Roman
Empire and in the Christian Churches, who had in his hands at
Rome the threads that ran out through the provinces, who stood
in correspondence with the chief Church in Greece? I hope
that no one will say that we have gained but little, that Clement
should have said more about the books of the New Testament.
We stand with him at the close of the first period and at the
opening of the second period. He may almost be said to belong
to both. It is impossible at that time that he should think of
making a list of the books of the New Testament for us. And
it would be absurd for us to think that he only knew of such of
these books as he named or quoted. We can only look for two
great general topics that his letter may present to us in a way to
satisfy our desire for literary testimony. One is negative, the
other positive. The negative proposition which his letter might
be suited to prove, or to favour so far as it goes, is that there
were for him at the time of writing the letter no other writings

5

66 THE CANON

aside from those of our New Testament that he needed to or
cared to quote. It is to be conceded that he might have known
of a dozen without quoting them, just as he failed to quote the
greater part of the New Testament books. Yet, nevertheless, the
fact is that he does not show signs of knowing of other books
that are Christian and of acknowledged value, and this is worth
a great deal. We must not forget that Clement's Christian
literature mirrors itself not merely in the few direct quotations.
It lies back of his way of thinking, his way of putting things, and
back of his language. Nothing in all this points to other writings
of the given kind.

According to the theories which represent his time as one
that overflowed with evangelical and epistolary literature, that
would lead us to assume the existence of twenty or fifty
Gospels and numerous letters, it would have been almost im-
possible for him to have written so much, so long a letter,
without quoting here and there or betraying in passing a know-
ledge of the contents of Gospels and letters that are unknown
to us. It is only necessary to remark, by the bye, that the
unknown books which were quoted a few times all seem to have
been such as belonged to the Apocrypha of the Old Testament.
A negative is difficult of proof. The phenomenon here named
proves nothing mathematically. But it goes to show that in the
nineties of that first century other writings than ours were not
held to be as valuable as ours were held to be. That is a very
important point for the consideration of the criticism before us.
The stream of Christian tradition is just forming, and it is in this
respect what a defender of the high value of the present New
Testament would wish it to be. If Clement does that for us
negatively, he may also do much for us positively. It is possible
that he shows direct acquaintance with James, First Peter, First
Timothy, and Titus, although the quotations in view do not
absolutely force this conclusion. He knows the Epistle to the
Romans, to his own Church, and the Epistle to the Corinthians,
to whom also he is writing, and the Epistle to the Hebrews,
perfectly well, and he quotes our Gospels more than once. Above
and beyond this his thoughts and his language, his sentences and
his words, show in many places the influence of the books with
which we are concerned. Thus Clement supports positively the
existence of our New Testament. He does not mention all the

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— SIMON MAGUS 67

books, but there are few that he does not seem to know. Again,
we assert that the stream of tradition at this initial point is all
that we could expect it to be. It can be claimed as full evidence
for Matthew, Romans, First Corinthians, and Hebrews, and it
fits in with the authenticity of the most of the other books. It
disappoints no just expectations.

Clement was a member of a well-known Church, a member
in good and regular standing. He might be called orthodox.
There existed, however, even at that time men who combated
Christianity or special forms of Christianity. In part they
were old opponents of the apostles, or the successors of such
opponents. They represented in many diverse shadings a
Judaism that busied itself seriously with Christianity, and
endeavoured to enforce the law among Christians ; and this
phase of Judaism seems to have had its foundation in Ebionism.
Another type had some roots reaching back before the birth
of Christ to Philo. Philo, the Therapeutae, and the Essenes
were inclined to combine Judaism and Greek philosophy.
Philo's way of starting was the, to him satisfactory, proof that
all the valuable contents of that philosophy were borrowed from
Moses. So soon then as Christianity began to spread, this
Philonian movement became, or branched off into, what may
be called Gnostic Ebionism or Ebionitic Gnosticism. In a
genuine Jewish manner, this type also laid stress upon the law.
A third type of the movements against orthodox Christianity,
if we may use the modern term in passing, was found in a Gnos-
ticism that proceeded from heathenism and was connected with
the Samaritan astrologian from Gittae. This Simon Magus, who
may be found in the eighth chapter of Acts, must have been
a man of some importance. Though we know little directly
about him, we can trace the influence of his activity for a long
while. He might be called a match for or a contrast to Clement.
Clement became the typical Churchman in the traditions of the
second century, and Simon was the typical heretic or opponent
of Christianity. A book called the Great Declaration is attributed
to Simon, but may be the work of one of his pupils.

We owe almost all our knowledge of these and many other
heretics of the post-apostolic age to an anti-heretical book called
the Philosophumena, that was probably written by Hippolytus of
Rome, or rather Bishop of Portus, towards the close of the

68 THE CANON

first quarter of the third century. It is true that the quotations
from the heretical writings are alleged to have been furnished
to Hippolytus by some assistant, and not to be accurate or not
to be precisely what they purport to be. It is not likely that
they were manufactured out of the whole cloth. If they be
not exactly from each of the sources to which they are severally
attributed, they may have been extracted by a labour-hating
hand from a single book or from one or two heretical books that
were easy of reach. In the case of Simon, the quotations are
probably right. A curious but telling proof for the existence
of approved and much read Christian books is found in the
fact that Simon or his pupils went to work to write books in
the name of Christ and of the apostles in order to deceive
Christians. Simon's book quotes from Matthew or Luke the
axe at the root of the tree, from Luke the erring sheep, from
John the being born of blood, and from First Corinthians the
not being judged with the world. Of course, he quotes in an
off-hand way. Freedom in the use of the words lay nearer for
him than for Clement. If his pupil Menander wrote that book,
these remarks would apply to him. Otherwise we know nothing
of this Menander's views, since a reference to him in Irenaeus
which has been connected with Second Timothy is entirely too
vague to be of use.

One of the Jewish opponents or heretics was Cerinthus,
apparently by origin a highly educated Egyptian Jew who
was fabled to have been — or was it true ? — variously in
person an opponent of the apostles. Irenaeus' story that John
rushed out of a public bath on seeing Cerinthus in it, crying
that the roof might fall in on such a man, looks like a true
story. Later tradition said that the roof did fall and kill
Cerinthus. However that may be, Cerinthus knew and used
at least the genealogy in Matthew and quoted from that Gospel
that it was enough for the disciple to be as his master. The
chief interest in Cerinthus attaches to Revelation. Although
he was taken to be a special antagonist of John's and of Paul's,
— because Paul belittled the law, — and to have opposed the
genealogy in Matthew to the opening words of John's Gospel,
he appears to have occupied himself particularly with Revelation.
Cerinthus' apocalyptic dreams and fancies were rewarded by
the attribution to him first of the book of Revelation itself

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— BASILIDES 69

and then much later of the Gospel and the Epistles of John.
This was criticism run wild. The connection of the Jew with
the Revelation fits into the newer theory of the original Jewish
basis for Revelation. But the upshot of the matter is that the
Revelation is thrown back to a very early date.

We may mention here in passing two heresies or sects, one of
which was partly the other almost wholly of Jewish extraction.
The Snake Worshippers, also called Ophites and Naassenes, are
perhaps the first sect that called itself Gnostic. They claimed
to have gotten their doctrine from Mariamne, who got it from
James the brother of Jesus. They quote or allude to Matthew,
Luke, John, Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Ephesians,
and Galatians, possibly also to Hebrews and Revelation. They
also refer to the Gospel to the Egyptians and to the Gospel
of Thomas. This was the Christian modification of an old,
a heathen, belief. Their opposition to John places them on
the list of those who prove the existence of the Fourth Gospel.
The other sect is that of the Ebionites, who say that Matthew
wrote a Hebrew Gospel. They seem to have used apocryphal
acts of the apostles.

Another heretic named Basilides, from Alexandria, is
quoted directly and fully by Hippolytus. He was a pupil of
Menander's, and lived, so far as we can judge from the
accounts, soon after the beginning of the second century.
He wrote twenty-four books on the Gospel. It is clear that
he accepts in general the books of the New Testament. He ap-
pears to know Matthew, and he quotes Luke, John, Romans, First
Corinthians, Ephesians, and Colossians. He may have alluded
to First Timothy, and have quoted First Peter. Now it is
extremely strange that this heretic at that early date should
do what no one had done before him, according to our literature,
namely, quote the books of the New Testament precisely in the
same way as the books of the Old Testament. For example (722) :
" And this is that which is spoken in the Gospels, He was the
true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
He quotes (725) from Romans : "as it is written," (726) from First
Corinthians : " about which the Scripture saith," from Ephesians :
"as is written," from Luke : "that which was spoken," and (727)
from John : " the Saviour saying." It seems very hard to believe
that that was written in the opening years of the second century.

yo THE CANON

It has been suggested that he, the heretic, would be more likely
to emphasise the scriptural character of the new books than
a Christian, who would assume it silently ; but I cannot see
the least reason for such a plea. Since I know of no grounds
upon which I could assert it likely that a Christian of a later
day inserted the words mentioned, it seems to me to be the
best thing to suppose that Basilides wrote this himself. But
I insist upon it then, first, that we must remember that the
life and activity of such a teacher is not likely to have been
confined within a very few years ; and second, that Basilides,
if he did not write this book later, say than in the year 130, may
himself have at a still later date modified the form of quotation
according to the then prevailing custom of Christians. Without
these formulas, Basilides confirms in general our New Testament
by exact quotations, supposing that the manuscripts are correct.
With these formulas he advances the question of the authority
of the books a long way. Were he of Jewish descent, had he,
as some sentences touching him would seem to intimate, Jewish
connections and therefore habits, the use of " as it is written,"
and of "the scripture saith," would be the more natural for
him, would glide more easily from his pen. But precisely
for a Jew or for a friend of the Jews, it would be less likely
that he should think of applying to these new books the formulas
that belonged to the sacred books of the Jews. In connection
with Basilides, it is important to mention a contemporary of
his named Agrippa Castor. We know very little about him,
but one thing marks him agreeably for us. He is the first
man, so far as we know, who in a set book defended the Gospels
against a heretic, in his defence of them against Basilides. He
is thought to have been a Jew.

These scattered opponents of Christians or of the gathering
Church have offered us no signs of other Gospels than those that
we have already considered, and as little do they point to other
Epistles than those in the New Testament.

Clement was in Rome, towards the West, and was combined
with Corinth. The next step leads us to the East, to the second
capital of the Roman Empire, to Antioch in Syria. This city
held the first place in Christianity after Jerusalem itself. It was
Antioch in which the great missionaries Paul and Barnabas
sought their foothold for their journeys. And Peter must have

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— IGNATIUS Jl

spent much time there. It was a city not only of wealth and
power, but also of learning, and its university was only second to
that at Athens. Ignatius was the bishop there about the begin-
ning of the second century. His death as martyr appears
to have taken place after the year 107 and before the year 117.
He wrote seven letters, so it is alleged, on his way to martyrdom
at Rome, — seven letters addressed to the Ephesians, the
Magnesians, the Trallians, the Romans, the Philadelphians, the
Smyrnaeans, and to Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna. An
extended form of these letters is a piece of work from the fourth
century. The shorter forms seem to be genuine. Should they
be proved not to be from the hand or brain of Ignatius himself,
— this has not yet been proved, — they would remain a very early
and interesting monument of Christian literature. They afford
what we might call a duly developed continuation of the Pastoral
Epistles, and represent or place before our eyes a condition of
affairs in the Churches which would appear to be the due
sequence to that portrayed in those letters of Paul.

One of the things which strikes one strangely in his letter to
the Smyrnaeans is his use of the word catholic for the Church, and
that both for the general Church, the Church through the world,
and for the special, single Church as of the universally accepted
type. This objection to the authenticity of this and therefore of
all the letters is to be met in two ways. In the first place, some
one must have begun the use of these words that is current at a
later time, and that some one may have been Ignatius at this
early period, however few applications of the term we may find in
the immediately succeeding literature, which had but little occasion
to use it ; but it is used in more limited sense by the Smyrnaeans
in their letter to the Philomelians. And, in the second place,
nothing would be easier than to suppose that the word was in
each of the six places in which it occurs an interpolation by a
later hand. It seems to me that the word fits in well where it
stands, and that it agrees with the style of the writer, but it might
easily have crept into the text from marginal glosses in one of the
early manuscripts.

It agrees with the style of the writer, and particularly with
the circumstances under which the letters were written, that
quotations are a rare thing, that they are short, and that
they are evidently from memory. For our purpose it is

72 THE CANON

enough to observe that the author clearly knows our New
Testament in general. The Gospels of Matthew and John appear
to have been either his favourites or the ones better known to
him. He knew the Epistles of Paul well. But at one point he
is supposed to quote from an apocryphal book or from an other-
wise unknown Gospel. He writes (Smyr. 3) : " And when he came
to those around Peter, he said to them : Take, touch Me, and
see that I am not a bodiless spirit." It may very well be from
the Gospel of Peter, his teaching, or his preaching, or from the
Gospel to the Hebrews as a parallel to the passage in Luke.
The word " take " is odd at that place. That is enough. It is
interesting and beautiful to read in the letter to the Philadelphians
the words (ch. 8) : " For me Jesus Christ is archives." This same
letter gives us for the first time the word Christianism as a parallel
to Judaism. It was appropriate that Christianity should get its
name from the city in which the word Christian was coined.
Ignatius, if genuine, agrees well with the stream that we conceive
to have flowed forth from the first century. If the letters be not
genuine, they give the same testimony for a period a trifle later,
perhaps at or soon after the middle of the second century.

An interesting piece of testimony to the Gospels must be men-
tioned here. Eusebius quotes in his Church History (3, 39) words
that Papias drew from a presbyter called John, who probably
lived about the turn of the century. This John says that Mark
wrote his Gospel according to what he heard from Peter, and that
Matthew wrote " Words " or " Sayings " in Hebrew, which means
in Aramaic. This must be examined closely. It reads : " And
this the presbyter said : Mark the interpreter of Peter wrote
down accurately, yet not in order, so far as he [Peter] told what
was said or done by the Christ. For he did not hear the Lord,
nor was he a disciple of His, but afterwards as I said of Peter,
who used to give lessons according as it was necessary, but not
as if he were making a collection in order of the Lord's words,
so that Mark made no mistake in thus writing down some things
as he remembered them. For he took care of one thing, and
that was, not to leave out anything he heard or to give anything
in it in a wrong way." This presbyter named John probably
lived at Ephesus at the same time that the Apostle John was
passing his last years there. He calls Mark the interpreter of
Peter. He might have said private secretary. The word

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— POLYCARP 73

interpreter, however, need not be limited to the literary services
here discussed, but may, if we consider the circumstances, have a
further interest for us, quite aside from the story about Mark's
Gospel. Peter the Aramaic Palestinian probably spoke some
Greek in Galilee and Judea, but as an older man in the foreign
capital it was doubtless desirable for him to have a younger man
at hand to do any interpreting that was necessary. Whether that
has anything to do with the Greek of First Peter, is a question
for another place. What I have written " [Peter] told " may also
be rendered " [Mark] remembered " ; the sense remains the same ;
in each case Peter tells and Mark remembers. The giving of
lessons, as I have written it, is, of course, his teaching, tellings
explaining what Jesus said or did. That Peter did according as
occasion offered, according to the needs of the occasion, or we
may say, of the listeners. The reference to Matthew is as
follows : " Matthew then wrote the sayings in Hebrew dialect,
and each one translated them as he was able." The way in
which Eusebius puts this makes it look as if this too came from
that presbyter John. For my part, I have no doubt that these
Aramaic sayings were the book that, after it was translated into
Greek, became the chief source for Mark, and then for the writer
of the first Gospel and for Luke.

Perhaps we may attach to the year 117 tentatively a few
pages from the letter to Diognetus, which has by some been
supposed to have been addressed to Marcus Aurelius' tutor
Diognetus ; we have here in mind the so-called first part of that
letter; the second part is a totally different thing, perhaps
thirty years later in date. This may be from Greece. We know
little about it, but we see in it our stream of New Testament
tradition, not in quotations, but in the whole contents. It places
Paul's Epistles and John's Gospel clearly before us in its subjects
and in its phrases and in its words.

When referring to Ignatius, I named his letter to Polycarp.
Let us turn to him. Polycarp was probably born in the year 69,
five years after Paul's martyrdom ; and he himself was burned at
Smyrna, where he was bishop, on February 23rd, 155. The
stadion in which he was burned is still to be seen on the hill
south of the city. He wrote a letter to the Philippians, Paul's
beloved Philippians, in Macedonia, just after the martyrdom of
Ignatius, Now I wish to lay special stress upon this Polycarp.

74 THE CANON

To use a figure that must not be forced, he is the keystone of
the arch that supports the history of Christianity, and therefore
of the books of the New Testament, from the time of the
apostles to the close of the second century. To begin with, as
was said, he appears to have been born about 69, and to have
been converted by one of the apostles, perhaps by John, whose
disciple he probably was. Irenaeus, bishop at Lyons, who was
born in Asia Minor, of whom we have to speak later, saw
Polycarp when a boy. Irenaeus it is who tells us that he was a
pupil of John and bishop at Smyrna. To complete the matter,
the Church at Philomelion in Phrygia asked the Church in
Smyrna to tell them about the martyrs of that year — the year in
which Polycarp was burned, and we actually have in our hands
the account written by the Church of Smyrna for the Philomelians
and for all Christians. Every Christian should know Polycarp's
answer (ch. 9) to the governor's demand before the multitude
in the stadion. The governor had tried to get him to swear by
the emperor, but in vain. He cried out again : " Swear, and I
release you. Revile Christ ! " Polycarp said : " Eighty and six
years do I serve Him, and He has never done me wrong. And
how can I blaspheme my king that saved me ? " It was a long
fight. The governor did not wish to burn the old man who had
willingly come up to the stadion to declare his faith. But soon
the smoke of his fire curled up out of the stadion and was seen
from the city and from afar upon that gulf, calling upon heaven
and earth to witness to the death of a Christian. That is the
keystone : A pupil of John, known to Irenaeus, at Rome to
discuss with the Bishop Anicetus the Easter question, proclaimed
by his Church at his death.

A few words then about his letter to the Philippians. They
and Ignatius too had asked him to send to them the letters
of Ignatius, and he refers to their having sent their letters — or
the one letter that they had received from Ignatius? — to him
to be forwarded to Syria. In closing (ch. 13) he says that
he sends with this letter the letters that Ignatius had sent to
Smyrna: "and others as many as we had in our hands." That
is an excellent example of what was said above about the inter-
course between the Churches. Think of these few lines :
Polycarp's surroundings connect Antioch in Syria where Ignatius
was bishop, Smyrna where he himself was bishop, Philippi in

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— DIDACHE 75

Macedonia to which he wrote, Philomelion in Phrygia to which
his Church wrote about him, Rome where he conferred with
Anicetus, and Lyons where Irenseus who had seen him died
about 202. And this man connects through Irenseus alone the
Apostle John who saw Jesus with the beginning of the third
century. There may have been a dozen Christians besides who
knew him, and who carried his traditions on to the third century.
What did this Polycarp know about the books of the New
Testament? His letter is full of the New Testament. It is
plain that he had in his hands the Gospel of Matthew, and he
probably had all four Gospels ; he had all the Epistles of Paul, he
had First Peter and First John, and he had that letter of Clement
of Rome. I have no doubt that he refers to Acts in his first
chapter. That he did not set about giving precise quotations is
due to the habit of his time and to his way of writing. He is, if
I may say so, saturated with Peter, but he is also Pauline to a
very high degree. We shall not meet with a second Polycarp,
but we do not need a second.

The next book that we have to look at is a new one. It is
the Teaching of the Apostles, and was only discovered a few
years ago. It may be dated in the form in which we have it
about the year 120. It is, however, without doubt in part much
older than that. One main source, or main part of it, is not
Jewish Christian, but out and out Jewish in its origin. For this
Teaching the Old Testament alone is Scripture. It contains
over twenty allusions to New Testament books, or short
quotations, of which a number are what we may call a free
reproduction of Matthew. Three or four quotations seem to
be a combination of Matthew and Luke. It shows no traces of
a definitely other Gospel. It is in many thoughts and phrases
much like John, but it does not quote him. One very interesting
point has respect to the Lord's Prayer. Though we have little
knowledge of the everyday life of the first Christians, we may
feel sure that they were in the habit of using that prayer daily.
The Jews had their " Hear, O Israel " ; and John the Baptist gave
his disciples a form of prayer ; and precisely this latter instance
led the disciples of Jesus to ask Him for a prayer, and brought
forth from His lips this one. Now it looks as if the writer of
the Teaching, or as if some scribe in copying it off, had not
drawn the prayer from the text of Matthew, but had written it

76 THE CANON

down as he remerrbered it from his own daily use of it. It will
be observed that we cannot prove this, yet it seems to be likely
that the various readings came from that source. We shall later
find a peculiarity in this prayer in Tertullian, that perhaps was
caused in the same manner. The older, originally Jewish
opening part, the Two Ways, contains no direct quotation from
the Old Testament, but the second, newer part gives us two,
from Zechariah and Malachi. One is introduced by the formula,
"as was spoken," and the other by the words, "For this is the
(offering) named by the Lord." Four times we find in the
second part mention of the Gospel with words drawn perhaps
from Matthew. It is, however, possible that these quotations
are a later addition. They are characterised twice : " as ye
have in the Gospel" (to which "of our Lord" is once added),
once : " as the Lord commanded in the Gospel," and once :
" according to the dogma of the Gospel." Once we read (ch. 9) :
" About this the Lord hath said, Give not the holy thing to the
dogs." But if we do not find direct quotations, we find plenty
of sense and sentences that must have come from Matthew and
Luke and John, and Paul's Epistles, and First Peter.

The writer knows the majority of our New Testament books,
and uses their words as freely as if he knew them well from begin-
ning to end. Of course he knows books that he does not happen
to quote. He is busy with the thoughts and not with the duty
of quoting all the books for the benefit of the criticism of the
canon. The testimony of this Teaching is all the more valuable
because it is such a convenient Christian handbook. It certainly
was then used very widely, and it passed largely into later, more
extended writings of the same general character. The question
may present itself to some minds, how it comes to pass that
here as elsewhere thus far, the words of the Gospel to so great
an extent seem to be those or nearly those of the Gospel
according to Matthew. I will say in advance that it does net
occur to me to suppose that none of these early writers had
written Gospels, that their allusions or similarities are due alone
to oral tradition. But why so often from Matthew, so seldom
from Mark and Luke? A definite answer is impossible. But
we may reflect in the first place that even to-day many people
read more of Matthew than of the other two. To-day its
position at the opening of the volume makes it easier to reach.

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— BARNABAS 77

In the second place, there is much in it that attracts the mind.
The rich and full Sermon on the Mount, that the author com-
bined for himself, draws all eyes to Matthew. Think, too, of
the groups of miracles and parables. Think of the majestic
effect of the : " This was done because it was written," and the
impressive fulfilment of prophecy. The great preference of
commentators for Matthew depends doubtless partly on its
initial position, but these other thoughts will have been of
moment. In manuscripts we sometimes find Matthew with a
full commentary, [John with a full one], Luke with a commentary
on passages not already treated in Matthew, and Mark with no
commentary, or but a very short one, because its matter is found
in Matthew and Luke.

Barnabas the apostle, but not one of the Twelve, is one of
the most striking figures in the early days of Christianity. He
stands out before us as the man who started Paul upon the
great mission journeys, who said to him : Come with me. From
Cyprus, long at Jerusalem, much at Antioch, no small traveller,
he must have had a wide view of Christianity. He died, it
may be, early in the sixties, before Paul. It would seem very
appropriate that he should write a book of some kind for the
Christians. Have we one from him? Perhaps so. But the
book that bears his name, the so-called letter of Barnabas, is
not from his pen. Sometimes it has been attributed to him,
but wrongly. In connection with it, the question as to its having
a right to a place in the New Testament, if it were really from
Barnabas, has been mooted. For myself I do not doubt at all
that it would have been one of the books of the New Testament
if he had written it. But this statement must be accompanied
by the remark that if he had written it, it would have been
another, a different book. I do not mean to say that everything
that an apostle penned would belong to the New Testament.
A book by Matthew about the custom-houses in Palestine would
not have been a part of the New Testament, whether written
before or after his becoming an apostle. Just as little would
a letter of Paul's about tent-cloth that had been ordered and
woven have been added to his thirteen Epistles. At the same
time, in spite of all I have previously said, we have no reason
to suppose that the apostles were extremely inclined to write a
number of books. And I doubt not that the most of what any

yS THE CANON

of them wrote after their joining Jesus, will have had some
connection with Him and His word and works and the life of
the Christians.

This letter of Barnabas is a work of the second century ;
perhaps it was written about the year 130, and at Alexandria.
The temple had been long destroyed. Christians had begun
at that place, at the place where the writer lived, at least to
give up the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, and to confine
themselves to the Lord's Day. The letter is full of the
Old Testament, but it is the Old Testament, on the one hand
allegorised, on the other misunderstood, ill appreciated, run
down. He, the unknown author, is on the lookout for odd and
striking things. He agrees to the old tradition given by Suidas
as Etrurian, which counts six periods of a thousand years each
before the Creation, and six of the same length after the Creation.
The notion pleases him that Abraham's family of three hundred
and eighteen prefigured the name of Jesus and the figure of the
cross, because in Greek the number eighteen gives the letters
"Je" for Jesus, and the number three hundred the letter T,
which is clearly the cross. If he could only have known that the
first general council at Nice two hundred years later was going to
be attended by three hundred and eighteen Fathers, his happiness
would certainly have been much greater. Barnabas has two
quotations from Matthew. The sentences quoted are so short,
and are of such an easy kind to be remembered, that the oral
tradition might be supposed to have passed them directly on to
Barnabas, were it not that in the one case he directly writes :
" as is written," and thus shows that he knows of written Gospels.
This application of the phrase, "it is written," which is the
technical way of quoting the sacred books of the Old Testament,
may be the earliest case of this use of the New Testament books
as Scripture. In one place (ch. 711) he quotes words of Jesus that
we have not in our Gospels. He has been telling about the goat
of the day of atonement, and that the reddened wool was to be
put upon a thorn-bush when the goat was driven out into the
wilderness. This he declares to be a figure for the Church in
reference to Jesus, seeing that if any one tries to get the wool
he will suffer from the thorns, and must be under stress to
become the master of the wool. "Thus," he says, "they who
wish to see me, and to attain to my kingdom, must be under

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— VALENTINUS 79

stress and suffering to take me." But these words may well be
simply a combination of the author's and not be drawn from an
unknown Gospel. They remind us of Paul's words in Acts on
reaching Derbe, after being stoned and left for dead at Lystva.
This letter has passages which remind us of Paul and of John.
The written books are, however, still of less account than the
tradition by word of mouth.

During the first half of the second century an Egyptian
named Valentinus applied himself to the question of the origin
of all things, and the sequence of the universe. He worked out
an elaborate system of spiritual powers, starting from the original
source of all things and running through thirty eons. From the
last eon, the Mother, came Christ and a shadow. The latter
produced the Creator and the devil, with their human races.
Jesus then came as the fruit of all thirty eons, in a merely
apparent body, and took the spiritual people, the children of
the Mother, and the Mother herself into the spiritual kingdom.
He alleged that his doctrine was connected with Paul through
Theodas. The quotations of his writings that we have are
scanty, and some of them are not of undoubted authority. Yet
he is a witness for the body of the New Testament books. His
whole system, the beings that he uses, or rather their names, are
drawn from the Gospel of John. His first three names, after the
original source of all things, are Mind, the Father, and Truth ;
and the following four are Word, Life, Man, Church. Of course,
those are good words in common use ; but their use in this way
by a Christian points, I think, unmistakably to John's Gospel.
But we have in the case of Valentinus a witness of high authority
and credibility, namely Tertullian, and he says that Valentinus
appeared to use the whole New Testament as then known. He
did, it is true, or Tertullian thought so, alter the text, but he
did not reject one book and another. Perhaps Valentinus only
used a different text from Tertullian. In Clement of Alexandria
we find a reference to Valentinus that looks interesting for the
criticism of the canon. Clement makes Valentinus distinguish
between what was written in the public books and what was
written in the Church. That looks like a distinction between
books that everybody, Jew and Gentile, might read, and books
that only Christians were permitted to read. But we have no
clue to the exact meaning of his words. Three of the books of

80 THE CANON

the New Testament — Luke, John, and First Corinthians — are
referred to by him.

From one of the pupils of Valentinus, Ptolemaeus, we have
a number of fragments which contain quotations from Matthew,
Mark, Luke, John, Romans, First Corinthians, Galatians, Ephes-
ians, and Colossians. We find, besides these fragments that
Irenseus has kept for us, in Epiphanius an interesting letter written
by Ptolemaeus to a Christian woman named Flora ; and he refers
in it to Matthew, John, Romans, First Corinthians, and Ephes-
ians. Irenaeus storms at the Valentinians because they wrote a
new Gospel called the Gospel of Truth ; and Epiphanius tells of
two other Gospels written by Gnostics, the Gospel of Eve and
the Gospel of Perfection. Should we call these apocryphal
Gospels if we had them in our hands, and place them beside the
Gospel of the Infancy and the Gospel of Thomas, for example ?
I very much doubt it. I do not suppose that these Gospels
offered an account of the life and works of Jesus and the apostles.
They were probably more or less fantastic representations of the
doctrines of the special Gnostic sects, the Gospel of Truth of
the Valentinian sect, from which they proceeded. We have
directly from the Valentinian school most important testimony,
not only to the existence, but also to the high value of the
Gospels which are in the New Testament; for Heracleon, a
near friend of Valentinus', wrote upon the Gospels. Perhaps
he wrote a commentary to one or all of them, perhaps he
commented particular passages that seemed to him to be more
interesting. We cannot tell. Origen quotes his comments on
John ; and Clement of Alexandria mentions a comment of his
on a passage in Luke. And the quotations give references to
Matthew, Romans, First Corinthians, and Second Timothy.
All that shows that these branches of Christianity held to the
main books of the New Testament. Nothing shows that they
dreamed of putting their books upon a level with the books that
became afterwards a part of our New Testament. Heracleon
quoted the Preaching of Peter, but we do not know that he
considered it scripture. One branch of the followers of Valen-
tinus, the pupils of a Syrian named Mark, are said to have
written, to have forged Gospels, but they went back, so far as
we can see, only to our four Gospels, not to any unknown
or apocryphal Gospels.

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— MARCION 8 1

We must now turn to a man who claims a great deal of
attention. His name is Marcion. His father was the Bishop
of Sinope on the coast of Paphlagonia. He is in every way the
most active and influential man, bearing the name of Christian,
between Paul and Origen. The position of the Christian Church
towards the Scriptures of the Old Testament seemed to him to
be totally false. He quarrelled with his father and went to
Rome. At Rome he quarrelled with the Church and left it.
Polycarp called him "Satan's firstborn." In spite of all
difficulties he set about founding a Church of his own about
the year 144, and he succeeded. Churches of his sect were to
be found in Syria as late as the fifth century. The thing that
interests us about Marcion in the criticism of the canon is the
fact that he set to work to make a New Testament for himself.
That is to say, not that he wrote the books, but that he decided
upon them, passed judgment upon their merits, their value,
their right to a place in a Christian collection. Here we find
in fact, so far as the authority of this Church founder could be
said to determine anything duly, a canon. Here for the first
time in the history of the Christian Church a clear cut, definitely
rounded off New Testament offers itself to view. He was led
in his selection of the books by his opinions about the course
of history. The usual supposition that the God of the Old
Testament and the Messiah of the Old Testament were the
God and the Christ of the Christians was wildly wrong. The
God who made the world was the Demiurge ; he was just, in a
way, but only just, not good. He was in the Old Testament
hardhearted and cruel and bloodthirsty. Jesus let Himself be
called the Messiah simply to fit in with the thoughts of the
people. He was not the son of a virgin, because that was
impossible. He simply came down from heaven and afterwards
went back to heaven. Of course, then, Marcion cast the Old
Testament aside. A Jewish Gospel like Matthew was nothing
for him. Why John did not suit him it is hard to say ; probably
the author was too Jewish for him, and besides it joined Jesus
directly with the creation of the bad Demiurge's world. He
chose for himself the Pauline Gospel according to Luke, and
omitted from it what his unerring eye knew to be from the
wrong sphere, the sphere of the Demiurge. Acts had too much
of Peter in it. The Epistle to the Hebrews, it is hardly necessary
6

82 THE CANON

to say, was altogether impossible. The Pastoral Epistles were
probably too local.

In the end, then, his New Testament, we may say his
Bible, consists of the Gospel part or the Gospel of Luke,
and of the Apostle part or the ten Epistles of Paul ; he
called Ephesians the Epistle to the Laodiceans. His Gospel
began perhaps with these words : "In the fifteenth year of
Tiberius Caesar, in the times of Pilate, Jesus descended into
Capernaum, a city of Galilee." Therewith he had disposed of
all birth accounts and genealogical tables. Towards the close
the Crucifixion must have been omitted. And the identification
of the person of Jesus may have been joined directly to the
thought that He really was an " appearance," a " spirit." His
Apostle began with Galatians, after which the Epistles to the
Corinthians, Romans, and Thessalonians followed. Then came
the Epistle to the Ephesians, but named Laodiceans. Colossians,
Philippians, and Philemon finished the book. What would the
Church have been if this headstrong man had succeeded in
carrying out his plans, if that were our whole New Testament ?
Doubtless Marcion was moved by lofty thoughts. It was
certainly nobler to condemn the bloodthirstiness that Israel
attributed to its God than to condone it. But his influence,
though it held out long, did at last fade away. It seems likely
that many of the Christians in his Churches, partly from indiffer-
ence or from ignorance out of mere accident, came, as years
passed by, to use other books of the general New Testament
of the Church. The whole Marcionitic movement has its great
value for the criticism of the canon in its testimony, which
is undoubtable, to the mass of the New Testament books.
Marcion's books were a selection from the books of the Church.
In the second place, it shows with the clearness of daylight
that up to that moment no canon had been determined upon
by the general Church. And, in the third place, it shows how
tenaciously the Christians clung to what books they had, when
the stormy and vigorously generalled Marcionitic movement,
with its arraignment of the remaining books, succeeded after all
in making no lasting impression upon the general contents of
the New Testament.

If any title for a book destined for Christians could be
appropriate, it is that of the Shepherd. Jesus called Himself

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— HERMAS 83

the good Shepherd. A brother of Pius, the bishop of Rome,
wrote it. Pius was bishop probably about from 141 to 157.
A threefold tradition says that his brother wrote the Shepherd
while Pius was in the chair. It contains eight visions, twelve
commands, and nine parables communicated to him by the
Church and the Shepherd. The tenth parable is the closing
section of the book, and contains the rules given to Hermas
how to order his life from henceforth. It will be at once clear
that a dream-book of this kind cannot be expected to contain
quantities of quotations from sheerly practical writings like the
Gospels and the Epistles in general. I suppose that people
seldom quote in dreams. The ecstatic condition makes the
writer all in all, without books. From the contents of the whole
composition it seems plain that the author knew at least one of
our synoptic Gospels ; the knowledge of all three is not to be
proved from the text. For myself, I do not doubt that all three
Gospels, all four Gospels, were well known at Rome before that
time. This author had no mission to speak of them in detail.
It seems certain that he knew the Epistle to the Ephesians.
The other Pauline Epistles do not come to the front. Some
things remind us of Hebrews, but we need not press the
similarity. The Epistle of James is discernible partly in its
matter, in the thoughts and things mentioned in it, and partly
in the words used. Of course, the book of Revelation fitted best
of all into Hermas' ideas.

He is one of the organisers of the renewal of the Old
Testament, and of the law in the Old Catholic Church that
is beginning to knit together. But it is not the more open
Jewish manner with the notion that the Church is merely
Judaism perfected. It is a Christianity that takes to itself
serried legal forms. This kind of Christianity cannot be
called Mosaic, but it is just the kind of Christianity that must
commend itself to a mind that had been brought up under
severely Jewish influences. We should not, however, fail to
observe where we stand. If I do not err, the reason for the
growth of this kind of religion then and there is to be sought,
not in the Old Testament and not in Ebionitic fancies of the
movers, but in the spirit of the people in which the new religion
had now been present for nearly a century. To dispose of
Ebionism, it was the tendency of this spirit that led the movers

84 THE CANON

to Ebionitic thoughts, not Ebionitic teaching which warped
them from a description of Christianity that lay nearer to their
hearts. The early Christianity at Rome was by the time of
the Epistle to the Romans of a heathen Christian cast. It could
not at that time be well other than Greek. It remained Greek
in language even beyond the time with which we are now dealing.
But as years passed by the Roman element grew stronger and
began to think for itself. The soul of Rome was law. And
that law, that sense of law and for law, must needs be impressed
upon the form that Christianity finally assumed in the eternal
city. The growth of the Old Catholic Church is not merely to
be charged to a general human perversity, and its leaning towards
the Old Testament is not alone a token of a new life in Jewish-
Christian circles in the second century, and its centring and vast
strength in Rome was not solely the consequence of the
enormous influence of the capital of the world. The crystallisa-
tion of this Church was the necessary consequence of the action
of the spirit of the Roman people upon the Christian Church.
For those Christians, little as they overcast the whole sphere to
reach such a conclusion, the new form of Christianity was not
one of the retrograde steps, returning to the used-up bottles of
the Old Testament, but a step forward. It was not a Judaising,
but a Romanising of Christianity. It was not conceived of as a
limiting of Christianity, much as it would block heresy, but as
a development and opening out of its capabilities.

At the close of the second vision we have a chance to see how
a good book would then be started on its way in the Church.
The elder woman, the Church, asks Hermas whether he has
already communicated to the elders a book that he had borrowed
from her to copy off. When he replied No, she says that it is all
right, she wishes to add something : " When, then, I shall finish
all these words, they shall be made known by thee to all the elect."
The process was to begin with the making two copies, so that
three books should be available : " Thou shalt write, then, two
little books, — that is to say, two copies, — and thou shalt send one
to Clement and one to Grapte. Clement will then send out to
the cities outside, for that is charged upon him. And Grapte
will put in mind the widows and the orphans. You, however,
will read it in this city with the elders who stand at the head
of the Church." Is not that a pretty window looking in upon

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— HERMAS 85

the literary habit in Christian Rome ? In the rest of the visions
the Church bids him again and again to " tell " the saints what
she says. The word of mouth is still powerful. But in the
commandments the Shepherd who takes charge of him again
enjoins him repeatedly to write. Thoroughly Pauline is (Vis. 3, 8)
the putting Faith at the head of the seven women who bear the
tower, the Church : " The first one of them, the one clasping
her hands, is called Faith. By this one the elect of God are
saved. The next one, the one girt up and holding herself firmly,
is called Self-mastery. This is the daughter of Faith." Later
follow, each the daughter of the preceding : Self-Mastery, Sim-
plicity, Purity, Holiness, Understanding (or Insight), and Love.
"Of these, then, the works are pure and holy and divine." In
the ninth parable (ch. 15) the Shepherd calls them virgins, and
there are twelve of them : " The first Faith, and the second Self-
mastery, and the third Power, and the fourth Long-suffering,
and the others standing in the midst of these have the names :
Simplicity, Purity, Chastity, Cheerfulness, Truth, Insight, Con-
cord, Love. The one who bears these names and the name of
the son of God will be able to enter into the kingdom of God."
The Christianity that this beautiful dream depicts is from the
beginning to the end a Christianity that lives upon our New
Testament and not on books of which we know nothing.

We have a sermon, a homily, written soon after Hermas, and
at Rome. It is even barely possible that the Clement whom
Hermas above mentions wrote it. We cannot tell. It would
have been in that case all the more easy for it to be attributed,
as it was for centuries, to the same Clement as the one who
wrote the good letter from the Church at Rome to the Church
at Corinth. Curiously enough this sermon gives several
quotations that do not agree with our Gospels. Undoubtedly
it is possible in one or two passages that the writer merely gives
the words at haphazard from memory, as has been done even
in modern sermons. In other cases the author probably had a
Gospel that we do not know the text of, perhaps the Gospel of
the Egyptians. He used Old Testament books. That we do
not in the course of a single sermon find allusions to the mass
of the New Testament, is nothing strange. He, the writer, says
(ch. 4), where he is speaking of the Lord : " For He saith, Not
every one saying to Me Lord, Lord, shall be saved ; but he that

86 THE CANON

doeth righteousness." That may be from an unknown Gospe\
but it may be his homiletical way of using Matthew's account.
The following, however, gives a new turn (ch. 4) : " The Lord said,
If ye were gathered together with Me in My bosom and should
not do My commandments, I will cast you out and say to you,
Begone from Me, I know not whence ye are, workers of law-
lessness." If it be not a confused and rewrought shape of several
Gospel passages, we do not know whence it comes. It is good,
plain sermon quotation of our Gospels when he says (ch. 5) : " For
the Lord saith, Ye shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves."
If anyone could have called his attention to the words of Jesus :
" Behold, I send you as lambs in the midst of wolves," he would
at once have replied: "That is just what I said, Ye shall be
as lambs in the midst of wolves." For a mind of that kind in
a sermon a general approach in thoughts and words is more
than enough to justify the phrase : The Lord saith. In another
place he uses words which we find in a like form in Irenaeus
and in Hilary. They are in a measure a rounding off of a
passage in Luke, and they may have stood in the original
book of Matthew of which we spoke at the outset : " For the
Lord saith in the Gospel, If ye keep not that which is little,
who will give you that which is great? For I say unto you
that the one faithful in the least is faithful also in much." One
of the phrases used by this sermon-writer confirms for us his
careless way of writing, yet it throws light upon the position
which the New Testament books were then beginning to take
as of a similar value to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and
it at the same time uses them as of authority : " I account you
not ignorant that the living Church is Christ's body . . . and
that the books and the apostles [say] the Church is not from
now but from before." The books are the Old Testament, it
is the Bible ; and the apostles are here the New Testament.
There is not the least reason to suppose that this preacher used
any other New Testament than ours, in spite of his quotations
from a strange Gospel or so. We know that a few such books
were in existence, and that they were occasionally used. Nothing
indicates that the strange Gospel was to supplant one of the
four Gospels.

A few lines, in two chapters, make up the second part of
what is called above the Letter to Diognetus. Nothing betrays

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— JUSTIN MARTYR 87

to us the origin or purpose of these few lines distinctly, if the
close may not be supposed to be the close of a sermon. The
style is florid but lofty. The author describes clearly for us
(ch. n) in one well turned sentence his Bible and its union with
the Church : " Then the fear of the law is sounded abroad, and
the grace of the prophets is made known, and the faith of the
Gospels is grounded, and the tradition of the apostles is guarded,
and the grace of the Church leaps for joy." There we have
the law, the prophets, the Gospels, and the apostles. The word
tradition used for the apostles no more points away from the
books to the living tradition by word of mouth than the grace
of the prophets applies to something not in the Old Testament.
The author refers (ch. 12) to First Corinthians: "Knowledge
puffeth up, but love buildeth up." The Word appears every-
where in this fragment, and the writer must have known John.

It appeared from what we said above that the great spirit,
even if the somewhat unmanageable one, between Paul and
Origen was Marcion. He passed through the Church and the
Churches like a storm, tearing much down here and there,
building some things up, and certainly inspiring many souls with
loftier thoughts of God and with more intense devotion to
purity of personal life than they had cherished before. Justin
the Martyr was of a totally different character. His name fills,
nevertheless, a very large place in the annals of the early Church,
in the chronicles of the second Christian century. He was born
probably about the year 100, near Jacob's Well, for the Greek
family from which he sprang lived at Nabulus, Flavia Neapolis,
old Sychar, Sichem. The Greek Samaritan was of cooler metal
than the Paphlagonian, and instead of starting out with a certain
thesis that alone was truth, he set out to seek the truth among
the philosophers of his day, and he closed his eventful life at
Rome as a martyr probably in the year 165.

The order and success of his quest is very interesting. He
tells Trypho the Jew about it in his dialogue with him (ch. 2).
" I at first . . . handed myself over to a Stoic. And I having
spent enough time with him, since nothing more was imparted to
me about God (for he neither knew himself, nor did he say that
this was a necessary object of study), I changed from him and came
to another called a Peripatetic, in his own opinion a keen man.
And this one, after enduring me the first few days, wished me

88 THE CANON

then to name his fee, so that the intercourse should not be with-
out benefit for us. And him I left for that reason, not thinking
him to be in the least a philosopher. My soul was, however, still
all aglow to hear the genuine and lofty side of philosophy, and I
went to a very celebrated Pythagorean, a man who laid great
store in philosophy. And then as I conversed with him, wishing
to become a hearer and close pupil of his : What then ? Art thou
at home in Music and Astronomy and Geometry ? Or dost thou
think that thou canst perceive any of the things that conduce to
happiness, if thou hast not first learned these things which draw
the soul from the things of sense and prepare it to use the things
of the mind ? " Justin was rather discomfited when the Pytha-
gorean sent him away. But he thought of the Platonists, and
went to them. They pleased him. The theory of the ideas
gave wings to his thoughts, and he soon became so puffed up
that he thought he might hope soon to see God. Wishing to
consider some things quietly he went out towards the sea
(perhaps from Ephesus). There a very old and mild and holy
man met him and asked him about philosophy only at last to
tell him of Christ. Remember what was said above about Chris-
tianity as a life. Justin relates (ch. 8) : "I took fire at once in
my soul, and a love seized me for the prophets and for those
men who are Christ's friends. And considering with myself his
words, I found that this was the only safe and useful philosophy.
Thus and therefore am I a philosopher." Carping souls have
sometimes suggested that Justin remained to the end more a
philosopher than a Christian. His story of this first acquaintance
with Christianity is not marked by a lack of warmth. Must
every Christian be as hotheaded as Marcion ? And Justin went
about in his philosopher's robe persuading men with tongue and
pen that Jesus was better than all the philosophers.

Were we not sure that our four Gospels were by this time as a
simple matter of ecclesiastical and literary necessity long domiciled
at Rome, long known on all the main roads and in all the chief
towns of Christian frequence, Justin would be the one to assure
us of it. The examination of his testimony will be in more than
one way instructive. The great question in respect to any author
who quotes texts is, how he quotes. We wish to know whether
he gets down a roll every time he wishes to refer to a sentence,
or whether he writes down the general sense and the words as

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— JUSTIN MARTYR 89

they occur to him in dashing them off with a quick pen. There
are so many quotations in Justin that we are not at a loss for
material to examine. Now these quotations are to a large
extent from the Old Testament. There we are on neutral
ground. There no one can think that we are trying to save the
appearances of a canonical Gospel or to avoid the words of an
uncanonical one. The first remark to be made is the curious
one that Justin in various quotations from the Septuaginta
translation of the Old Testament agrees strikingly with Paul in
words which do not coincide with those in the common text.
Now this is not to be explained by the theory that Paul and
Justin both happened to make precisely the same deviations in
trying to give the same verses. The reason seems clearly to be
this, that Justin knew the Epistles of Paul so well that all the
passages from the Old Testament in them took for him the form
that Paul had clothed them with. Justin says to Trypho the Jew
(ch. 39) : " It is nothing marvellous, I continued, if you hate us
who know these things, and denounce your ever hard-hearted mind.
For Elias, too, begging for you to God, says : Lord, Thy pro-
phets have they slain, and Thy altars have they torn down ; and
I alone am left, and they seek my life. And He answers him, I
still have seven thousand men who have not bent their knee to
Baal." In the main point that is Paul's way of quoting this
passage in Romans. And, the one difference of a few words is
probably due to a slip in Justin's memory.

Another check is to be found in the passages that Justin
quotes more than once, for we find in a large number of
cases that he does not give precisely the same words each
time. It is not singular, after we are thus sure that he is
quoting out of his head, that we find him naming the wrong
author for a passage, Jeremiah for Isaiah, or Hosea for Zech-
ariah. If he names the passage more than once, he may have
the name right in one place and wrong in another. Some-
times he combines various passages that fit together into the
thought and expression. Sometimes he warps the words to suit
his point. And ever and ever again, by the sovereign right of a
writer to give the sense without regard to words, he quotes the
Greek Old Testament in such a way that if it were the text of
the Gospels many an investigator would be inclined to call it a
quotation from an unknown Gospel. If that be the way in which

90 THE CANON

Justin cites the Scriptures of the Old Testament, we may in
advance feel sure that he will not act in the least, differently when
he refers to the words of the New Testament. Strange that we
so often berate men for cleaving to the letter in their words, and
that we in this case because of a modern view of the holiness
and intangibility of the words of the Bible, a view based partly
on the post-Christian Jewish Masoretic habits, are so much dis-
contented with these ancient worthies who strike at the heart of
the matter and think nothing of ,the form. Do we, when we feel
stirred against the writers and preachers who quote carelessly, —
do we ever reflect upon the fact that we are not able to say
what book of the Wisdom of God Jesus refers to towards the
end of the eleventh chapter of Luke ? " On this account also
the Wisdom of God said, I will send to them prophets and
apostles, and some of them they will slay and will persecute, in
order that the blood of all the prophets that was shed from the
founding of the world should be demanded of this generation,
from the blood of Abel till the blood of Zacharias, who was slain
between the altar and the house." If Jesus could quote God's
Wisdom so that we cannot verify His words, much more may late
writers like Justin allow themselves a certain freedom in the use
of Gospel texts.

Before we enter upon the examination of his use of the
words of Jesus, we must refer to the name that he employs
for the books from which he draws these words. He does
not usually call them Gospels. We must bear in mind that
the title Gospel was not at first attached to each of the books.
In Justin's three genuine works which have been preserved, the
two (one) Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho, we find
references to the Gospel in the singular, Trypho speaks thus, and
to the Memoirs or Memorabilia which are Apomnemoneumata
precisely like Xenophon's Memorabilia. Eight times he calls
these memoirs : " Memoirs by the Apostles." Four times he
calls them only : " Memoirs." Once he calls them : " Memoirs
composed by the Apostles of Christ and by those who followed
with them." In this latter case he quotes Luke. And once,
in quoting Mark on the name Jesus gave Peter and on the
name Boanerges for James and John, he calls them : " Peter's
Memoirs," doubtless in allusion to the account in Papias that
Mark wrote down Peter's words. The writers of the Gospels,

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE — JUSTIN MARTYR 91

that is to say, of these Memoirs, Justin calls Apostles in one
place, for he says : " the Apostles wrote," and adds a point given
in all four Gospels. He refers to these writers (Apol. 33) as :
" those who have written memoirs of all things concerning our
Saviour Jesus Christ whom we believe."

Justin also tells us something else about these books,
something that is very important and that will take our thoughts
back to the usages and habits in the divine services in the
early Christian Church. It is well on in his Apology for the
Christians to the heathen emperor (ch. 67), and he describes
the weekly worship of the Christians : " On the day called the
day of the Sun a gathering takes place of all who live in the
towns or in the country in one place, and the memoirs of
the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, so long as
the time permits. Then the reader stops and the leader
impresses by word of mouth, and urges to imitation of, these
good things. Then we all stand up together and send forth
prayers." Here it is plain that in the circles that Justin was
acquainted with, these Memoirs, whatever they were, were not
regarded as being upon a very different plane from the Scriptures
of the Old Testament, It is true that he does not speak with
great exactness. It would be possible for him to say what he
says, even if the Memoirs were still regarded as human books,
were oniy read in the public services under the heading of: Man
to Men. Nevertheless, after making every allowance, it must
be granted that when he names the Memoirs before the Old
Testament Scriptures, he really places them not merely on a
level with them, but above them. Of course, the writings of the
prophets must here include the Law. He is only giving a general
description.

The fact that Justin causes Trypho to speak of the Gospel
in the singular has nothing to do with the use of one Gospel
book instead of the four Gospels. Even to-day, a writer or
orator does not hesitate to speak of what we find in the Gospel,
meaning merely in the Gospel story of Jesus, and totally irrespec-
tive of the point whether the matter in question happens to stand
in only one of the four Gospels or in two or in all four. And
whatever may happen to-day, we have many a writer of the time
following that of Justin who says Gospel in the singular ; for
example, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria,

92 THE CANON

Origen, Hippolytus, and Tertullian. Thus far, then, we have
found that Justin speaks of the Gospel, of the Gospels, but
especially of the " Memoirs of his Apostles," a form used five
times, — a form in which " his " can refer to no one but Jesus.
Let us count it up : Justin, who as a Christian philosopher has
passed through many lands, knows books telling of Jesus, written
by His apostles and by those who followed with them, called
Gospels. He calls them Memoirs. Has the name Memoirs any
particular value for Justin or for anyone else ? Scarcely. It was
probably a mere philological fancy of Justin's that was born with
him and died with him. It undoubtedly fitted well into his
discussions with men of classical training to be able to use thus
Xenophon's word as an introduction for the written story of
Jesus. Otherwise the word was not of the least importance.
We may therefore let the word Memoirs pass and take up the
word Gospels, for Justin says they are also called Gospels.

Does anything go to show that Justin had among the number
of these Gospels a Gospel that we do not possess among our
four Gospels? He speaks of Christ as born in a cave, of the
Wise Men as from Arabia, and of Christ's making ploughs and
yokes as a carpenter, all of which is not in our Gospels. But
then that is not in other serious Gospels, and it is nothing to us
whether Justin got it from verbal tradition or from some current
apocryphal Gospel. We certainly have no ground to expect
in advance that he would name for our special benefit every
New Testament book that he knew of. He does mention one
book besides the Gospels, and that is the Revelation. It is in the
Dialogue with Trypho (ch. 81) : " And then, too, a certain man
of our number, his name was John, one of the apostles of the
Christ, prophesied in a revelation made to him that those who
believed in our Christ would spend a thousand years in Jeru-
salem, and that after this the general and, in a word, the eternal
resurrection of all like one man would take place, and the
judgment." That is the only other book of the New Testament
that he names.

When we examine the words that he quotes from the Memoirs
and ask ourselves whether or not they could be, could have been
drawn from our four Gospels, we must at once recall what we
learned from the examination of his quotations from the Old
Testament. It is not the habit of Justin to take down a roll and

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— JUSTIN MARTYR 93

copy off a sentence carefully when he wishes to quote it. He
reproduces a passage from the Old Testament just as it comes
into his thoughts, and we may be sure that he will do exactly the
same with the New Testament. Ezra Abbot examined this
matter and placed the results, as follows, far beyond the reach
of doubt. In the sixty-first chapter of the Apology Justin describes
baptism : " Those who are persuaded and believe that these things
which we teach and say are true, and promise to be able to live
thus, are taught to pray fasting and beseech God for the remission
of the former sins, we praying and fasting with them. Then they
are led by us to a place where there is water, and in the manner
of new birth, in which we ourselves also were new born, they are
born again. For in the name of the Father of all things and
Master God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ and of Holy Spirit
they then undergo the washing in the water. For the Christ also
said : If ye be not born again, ye shall in no wise enter into
the kingdom of the heavens. But that it is impossible for
those who have once been born to enter into the wombs of
those who bore them is clear to all." Now in the third
chapter of John we read: "Jesus answered and said to him —
that is, to Nicodemus — : Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except
a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith to Him : How can a man be born when he
is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb,
and be born ? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God." For a man who did not already
know how Justin quotes, the difference between the words in
Justin and those in John might in truth seem to exclude the
suggestion that Justin was really quoting from John. Careful
investigation shows, however, in the first place, that pretty much
all the omissions made here and there by Justin have also been
made by well-known Church writers of a later date, and who
certainly quoted John. As for the changes in words, so that the
sense rather than the form of John is reproduced, these changes
are to be matched in similar later writers, some of them ten times,
some of them twenty times, some of them sixty times.

The last touch of proof for the thorough nothingness of the
claim that Justin was here using some unknown apocryphal
Gospel, is given by a comparison of the use of this text in the

94 THE CANON

writings of the famous English clergyman Jeremy Taylor, who
died in 1667. He quoted this passage at least nine times. It
scarcely need be said that he got it from the English version of the
Gospel of John and not from an unknown Gospel. Now Jeremy
Taylor writes every time " Unless " instead of " Except " ; that
is so uniform, it must, of course, be another Gospel. He writes
six times " kingdom of heaven " for " kingdom of God " ; that is
a great difference ; the kingdom of heaven is like Matthew. Once
he says merely " heaven " instead of " kingdom of God." He
writes four times " shall not enter " instead of " cannot enter."
He writes the second person plural "ye" twice instead of the
third person singular. He writes once "baptized with water"
instead of " born of water." He writes once " born again of
water " instead of " born of water." He writes once " both of
water and the Spirit" instead of "of water and of the Spirit."
He omits "of" before Spirit six times. He adds "holy" before
Spirit twice. We see that in spite of the ease with which an
English clergyman in the seventeenth century could refer to the
text of a Gospel passage, he did not do it. What wonder that
Justin did not do it in the second century, when he would have
had to unroll a roll and look around for the words. Even the
Book of Common Prayer quotes this passage twice alike, and
wrong. That one passage shows of itself that Justin used the
Fourth Gospel. He probably used all four Gospels.

The thought that Justin did not know our Gospels, but used
apocryphal ones, finds a very good blocking-off in a single
passage. In speaking of Jesus' baptism (Dial. 103), Justin gives
as addressed to Him the heavenly words : " Thou art My Son.
This day have I begotten Thee." These words are in some
of our witnesses to-day for the passage in Luke. Now Justin
does not attribute these words to the Memoirs, but adds after
these words that in the Memoirs of the Apostles the devil is
then described as having come to Him and tempted Him.
He appears to distinguish between the Memoirs and the source
of that addition. It was seen above that Justin said that the
Memoirs were from the apostles and from those who followed
them. That looks as if Justin had in view Matthew and John
as apostles, and Mark and Luke as followers of apostles. A
passage in the Dialogue (ch. 88) appears to confirm this thought
by referring to something given alone by Matthew and John,

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— JUSTIN MARTYR 95

as written by the apostles ; it is the only passage in which
Justin says the apostles have written: "And then when Jesus
came to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, as Jesus
went down into the water also fire was kindled in the Jordan ;
and when He came up from the water, like a dove the Holy
Spirit flew upon Him, wrote the apostles of this our Christ."
It is that last part for which Justin appeals to the apostles
as if meaning that that was told by Matthew and John, in whose
Gospels it is.

In telling Trypho of the vast love of God and His readiness
to take men who are willing to come to Him, Justin gives us a
word, a saying of Jesus that is not in our Gospels. It may have
passed from the tradition by word of mouth to the Gospel of
the Hebrews. After quoting Ezekiel, Justin continues (ch. 47) :
" For this reason also our Lord Jesus Christ said : In whatsoever
things I shall light upon you, in these also I shall judge you."
We might instead of " light upon " say directly " catch " you.
In another passage in the Dialogue (ch. 35), Justin quotes two
passages from Matthew, and in between them the words : " And
there shall be schisms and heresies." This occurs in another
form in the Clementines. It may be a word of Jesus. But it
may also be a vague deduction from some words of Paul that
came to be attributed to Jesus. That is all that Justin gives us
from possible other Gospels. It is not much.

What Justin says about Jesus is then almost without ex-
ception precisely what our Gospels gave him, and we may be
positively sure that he got it out of no other Gospels. He
exaggerated it may be, as when he writes that Herod killed
all the male children in Bethlehem ; but that might befall
a writer at any date who liked strong statements. In like
manner he declares that the first Jewish calumniators of the
Christians at the resurrection sent picked men out into the whole
world denouncing the theft of the body of Jesus and the false
story of the resurrection and ascension. That was a very easy
stretching of the story in Matthew. A story-teller would regard
it as altogether legitimate. In some passages we may hesitate
whether to suppose that he himself was the author of a certain
addition to or an exegesis of Gospel words, or whether to assume
that he had heard them from others as he travelled about.
Some of them may have been rabbinic Jewish interpretations

g6 THE CANON

which had passed over into Jewish Christian and Christian
circles. For example, it makes us think of the writer of our
Gospel of Matthew when we read that Justin first quotes Moses
(Apol. 54) : "A ruler shall not fail from Judah. . . . And he shall
be the longing of the Gentiles, binding to the vine his foal,"
and, as he recounts the fulfilment of all the details of the
prophecy, assures us : " For a certain foal of an ass stood in a
byway of the village bound to a vine." He may just as well here
be following Jewish commentators on Messianic passages. The
writer of the Gospel of Matthew would scarcely have failed to
add that vine, if he had thought of it, and have declared : " That
took place in order that the words might be fulfilled."

Justin's books are full of scripture, full of gospel matter. The
gospel matter is from our four Gospels precisely as we must look
for it to be. Justin is a witness for widely separated countries
and Churches, from Palestine to Rome. The philosopher has
been of no less value to us than the Paphlagonian spiritual giant
and stormy reformer. Justin quotes from memory. He some-
times quotes much at random. He adds to one book words
from another. He combines two or three passages into one
unwittingly. But in all he shows that the gospel history for him
is precisely the history that we have in our four Gospels ; he has
nothing to add to it and nothing to take away from it. This cir-
cumstance is the more noteworthy because we know that he was
so widely travelled and so well informed. He cannot but have
known of some of the Gospels that are sometimes named, the
Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Egyptians, for
example. But, if he knows of them, he does not bother about
them. He does not search out for peculiar statements about
Jesus and the words of Jesus in them in order to lay them before
us as curiosities. And now it is worth while to observe that
Justin's writings were probably written before the year 165, his
Apology before the year 154. The best opinion thus far is that
he died about the year 165. Supposing that the original ante-
evangelical book that we conjecture to have been written by
Matthew was written about the year 67, there would have
elapsed from it to the year 154 only ninety years. If we regard
it as likely that Justin became a Christian by the year 133, that
would have been little more than sixty years, and within those
sixty years we should have to place the writing and the earliest

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— PAPIAS 97

using of our four Gospels. That is no large margin of time for
the preparation of and the spreading abroad of a number of
unknown books which should have filled the places later held
by our Gospels. Justin had every chance to know all that was
before the eyes of Christians in the Roman Empire shortly before
and ten years after the year 150, and he betrays no knowledge
of books highly valued by them and neither to-day in our New
Testament nor known to us.

Just after referring to the letters of Ignatius, we had occasion
to speak of certain words that Papias had related as from a
presbyter John. It is now time to speak of Papias himself. He
must have been born long before the year ioo, for he was
apparently an older contemporary of Polycarp, and we may
suppose that he was born about the year 80.

He may have been a heathen by birth. His name rather
points to that. And the name fits well for a boy born at
Hierapolis. Eusebius speaks slightingly of his mental calibre,
but we do not need to think less of him on that account.
Eusebius was one of the cool scientific people who looked back
to the great Alexandrian and Syrian schools with pride. He had
little patience with the fancies of the millenarians in Asia Minor.
Eusebius writes, then (H. E. 3. 39), of Papias in the following strain,
after he has given various things out of Papias : "And the same
[writer] adds further other matter as if it had reached him from
an unwritten tradition, both some strange parables of the Saviour
and strange teachings of his, and some other things rather of a
mythical kind. Among which he also says that the kingdom of
Christ will exist bodily upon this very earth a thousand years
after the resurrection from the dead. Which I think he assumed
through misconception of the apostolical explanations, not hav-
ing himself seen what was told to them mystically in certain
signs. For he appears to have been exceedingly small in mind,
as can be put forth so to speak from his own words. Besides, he
has been the chief cause (Eusebius would say : of the absurd
opinions) also for the most of those churchly men after him of a
like opinion with himself, they hiding themselves behind the
great antiquity of the man, as, for example, Irenaeus, and if there
is any other that has come to light thinking the like things.
And he hands down also in his book other discussions of the word
of the Lord by Aristion, the one above alluded to, and traditions
7

98 THE CANON

of the presbyter John, to which remanding those eager to learn,
we shall here of necessity add to the former words presented
[from his book] a tradition which, alluding to Mark who wrote the
Gospel, is put forth in these words. And this the presbyter said :
Mark the interpreter of Peter wrote accurately as many things
as he [Peter] related, yet not in order, of the things said or done
by the Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed with
Him, but afterwards as I said with Peter, who gave teachings
according as they were necessary, but not as setting forth a
connected system of the Lord's words. So that Mark made no
mistake, writing down some things thus as he remembered them.
For he gave attention to one thing, not to leave out anything
that he heard or to say anything false among what [he gave]."

Papias' whole neighbourhood was millenarian, and he could
not suspect that a Church historian two hundred years later would
throw that up to him. For our purpose Papias' five books, the
Explanations of the Lord's Sayings, would, we think, be invaluable.
They may still be found in some corner of the East. Irenseus
refers thus to the fourth book (Eus. H. E. 3. 39) : " This Papias the
hearer of John, and the companion of Polycarp. an ancient man,
testifies in writing in the fourth of his books." "Papias himself,
however, (Eusebius continues) shows in the preface to his Words
that he was in no wise himself a hearer and beholder of the holy
apostles, and he teaches in the following words that he received
the things of faith from those who were the acquaintances of them :
1 1 shall not hesitate to weave together with the comments for thee
such things as I at any time learned well from the elders and kept
well in memory, since I am convinced of their truth. For I did
not take pleasure, as most people do, in those who say a great
deal, but in those that teach the true things ; and not in those who
relate foreign commandments, but in those [who relate] the
commandments given to faith by the Lord, and coming from the
truth itself. If, forsooth, also someone came who had followed
with the presbyters, I sought after the words of the presbyters ;
what Andrew, or what Peter said, or what Philip, or what Thomas
or James, or what John or Matthew, or what any other of the
disciples of the Lord, and what both Aristion and the presbyter
John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not account it
that the things from the books were to me of so much profit as
the things from a living and remaining voice.' Where also it is

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— PAPIAS 99

worthy of note, that he counts the name John twice, the former
of which he combines with Peter and James and Matthew and
the rest of the apostles, clearly aiming at the evangelist ; and the
other John, interpunctuating his discourse, he orders among the
others who are aside from the number of the apostles, putting
Aristion before him, and he clearly names him a presbyter.
Thus also by this we have a proof that the history of the two who
are said to have had the same name is true, and it is also said
that at Ephesus in Asia there are tombs still to-day for each one
of the Johns. To which also it is necessary to pay attention.
For it is likely that the second, unless someone should wish
that it were the first, saw the revelation that is in our hands said
to be of John. And this Papias now before us confesses that he
received the words of the apostles from those who followed with
them, but says that he himself was an own hearer of Aristion
and of the presbyter John. Accordingly, often referring to them by
name in his books, he lays before our view their traditions. And
this shall not be said to us for no profit. It is also worth while
to add to the words of Papias presented, other sayings of his in
which he relates some paradoxical things, and other things as if
they had reached him by tradition. The fact then that Philip the
apostle together with his daughters lived at Hierapolis is made
known by the forefathers. And Papias being at that [place]
relates that he received a miraculous story from the daughters of
Philip, which is noteworthy. For he relates that a resurrection of
a dead man took place in his day, and again another paradoxical
thing that took place about Justus the one called Barsabas, as
drinking a poisonous medicine and experiencing nothing dis-
agreeable by the grace of the Lord."

Eusebius tells us that Papias quotes First John and First
Peter, for he is looking up the witnesses for the books that
are less well attested. He also mentions that Papias has the
story of the Adulteress, which he says is also in the Gospel of
the Hebrews. That does not in the least make us sure that
that story belonged to that Gospel. It may have been thrust
into it, just as it was thrust into the Gospel of John. The story
is doubtless good tradition, wherever it started. Irenaeus gives
us a good view of what was possible in the way of millennial
exegesis at the hands of a Papias, and we need not remark
that Irenaeus as a millenarian was well contented with it.

IOO THE CANON

Irenaeus quotes (5. 33) the words of Jesus from Matthew :
" I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of this vine, until
that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's king-
dom," and insists upon the earthly, the terrestrial character of
this kingdom, because real wine could only be drunk by real
men. After referring to sayings of Jesus touching the rewards
that those who have done or have suffered for Him shall receive
in a clearly mundane sphere, he states that the patriarchs had
a right to look for the fulfilment of the promises to them in a
solid earthly form, and not in vague heavenly blessings. Here
he then draws from Papias. " As the presbyters recounted, who
saw John the disciple of the Lord, that they had heard from him,
how the Lord used to teach about those days and to say : The
days will come in which vines shall grow, each one having ten
thousand shoots, and on each shoot ten thousand branches, and
on each branch again ten thousand twigs, and on each single
twig ten thousand clusters, and in each single cluster ten thousand
grapes, and each single grape when pressed shall give twenty-five
measures of wine. And when any one of the saints shall have
taken hold of one of the bunches, another will cry out : I am
a better bunch. Take me. Bless the Lord through me. In
like manner also a grain of wheat shall bring forth ten thousand
heads, and each single head will have ten thousand grains, and
each single grain will give five double pounds of fine pure
flour. And the rest, apples and seeds and grass, according to
the same manner. And all the animals using these things for
food which are received from the earth will become peaceful and
ready each in its place, subject to men in all subjection. And
those things also Papias the hearer of John and the companion
of Polycarp, an ancient man, testifies in writing in the fourth of
his books. For he put together five books. And he added
saying : These things are credible to those who believe. And
Judas, he said, the traitor not believing but asking : How then
shall such growths be brought about by the Lord ? the Lord said :
Those will see who shall come to these [times]."

We can easily imagine how Eusebius, who was no millenarian,
despised a writer who delighted in these fancies; but we shall
nevertheless not regard these fancies as enough to put Papias into
the class of weak-minded men. Papias was clearly a wideawake
man, ready and eager to learn from any and every source. Can

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— PAPIAS 1 01

we form any judgment as to what the sayings of the Lord were
about which Papias wrote his comments ? Put the question differ-
ently. Does anything that we learned in Eusebius or in Irenseus
about Papias and about his comments give us a chance to suspect
that in those five books he considered words of Jesus that are not
to be found in our Gospels ? Were his comments framed upon
the Gospel to the Hebrews, or on the Gospel to the Egyptians,
or were they based upon all sorts and descriptions of single sayings
of Jesus that he had gathered together ? We have no reason to
think of anything of that kind. How eagerly would Eusebius
have told us of the contents of the book had that been its
description ! How would Anastasius of Sinai in the sixth century
have revelled in a book with new words of Jesus ! No. Papias'
book may well have here and there reproduced an unknown
saying of Jesus, as, for example, in the supposed reply to Judas
a moment ago. But his five books were probably a collection
of all manner of traditions out of those early years which would
answer many a question that we should like to have answered,
but give us twice as many new questions to answer.

Papias' Comments will probably in no special way increase
our knowledge of the direct words of Jesus. But we should like
to have them nevertheless. The importance of Papias for the
criticism of the use of the books of the New Testament lies not
only in his having lived before the death of the Apostle John,
and in his having lived until the middle or ten years after
the middle of the second century. That stretch of years is
extremely interesting, it is true, but Polycarp has already given
us the beginning of the period and carried us well towards the
end of it. Papias' weight for us is increased because he comes
from another and that an important town, Hierapolis, in another
province, Phrygia, and indeed from a town that has for us an-
other trifling memory of interest.

For the evangelist Philip, one of the seven chosen in the
sixth chapter of Acts, and who in the twenty-first chapter was
at Csesarea, after went to Hierapolis and died and was buried
there ; and Papias appears to have seen Philip's daughters with his
own eyes. That is a new proof for the way in which Christians
travelled in those days, and a new hook for the fastening of the
genuineness of the books and of the lives of the apostles and of
the followers of the apostles. It is not the case that a great gap

102 THE CANON

separates the time of Paul from the time of Papias, for example.
The years were closely interwoven with the threads of human
lives. Paul staved several days in Philip's house at Caesarea, and
Philip's four prophesying, virgin daughters must then have been
more than mere children, else they would not have prophesied.
At least two of the daughters and perhaps all four lived later
with Philip at Hierapolis. Can we suppose that they forgot that
Paul had spent several days at their house at Caesarea? They
may well have spoken of Paul to Papias, if Papias when he saw
them was more than a little boy. This is not to be called playing
with earnest things. This is scientific consideration of the facts of
personal intercourse, which go to connect the earliest period of
Christianity with the beginnings of a more definitely tangible
and in a literary way more firmly based history in the middle of
the second century. Whether or not Philip had seen Jesus, we
do not know. It is possible that he had seen Him. It is further
to be kept in mind that Papias was not a mere lay member of
the Church at Hierapolis, but its bishop, one, therefore, who will
have had every opportunity and every right to have searched out
carefully all the memories of the past in those circles.

Papias refers to presbyters, to elders who had furnished him
with valuable information from former times. That was due and
proper tradition. We have a similar reference to presbyters in
Irenaeus, and it will be worth our while to see what these
presbyters to whom Irenaeus refers have to tell us touching the
books of the New Testament. Irenaeus writes, for example :
" As I heard from a certain presbyter, who had heard from those
who had seen the apostles and from those who had learned (who
had themselves been apostles ?) : that for the older circles in the
case of things which they did without the counsel of the spirit,
the blame was enough which was taken from the Scriptures. For
since God is no respecter of persons, He placed a fitting blame
on things not done according to His decree." After giving
examples from David and Solomon, Irenaeus continues: "The
scripture bore hard in upon him, as the presbyter said, so that no
flesh may boast in the sight of the Lord. And that for this reason
the Lord went down to the parts below the earth, preaching the
gospel of His coming also to them, there being a remission of
sins for those who believe on Him. But their deeds — the deeds
of the great ones of the Old Testament — were written for our

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— PAPIAS 103

correction, that we should know first of all that our God and
theirs is one, whom sins do not please, even when they are done
by great men ; and in the next place that we refrain from evils.
We should not therefore say that the elders were proud, nor
should we blame those of old times, but ourselves fear, lest by
chance after having recognised Christ, doing something that does
not please God, we should have no further remission of our
offences, but should be shut out from His kingdom. And that
therefore Paul said : For if He did not spare the natural branches,
lest He by chance spare not thee, who being a wild olive was
inserted in the fat olive and wast made a companion of its
fatness : and similarly seeing that the prevarications of the people
are described, not because of those who then transgressed, but
for our correction, and that we should know that it is one and
the same God against whom they then used to sin, and against
whom some now sin who say that they have believed. And that
the apostle had most clearly shown this in the Epistle to the
Corinthians, saying : I would not that ye should be ignorant . . .
let him see to it that he fall not."

" The presbyters used to show that those were very senseless
who from the things which happened to those who of old
did not obey God, try to introduce another father." This
is evidently pointed at men who like Marcion condemned
the cruelty of the God of the Old Testament and explained
that the New Testament and Christ proceeded from a totally
different God who is a loving Father. Irenaeus proceeds
with the presbyters : " On the contrary, placing over against that
how great things the Lord's coming had done for the purpose of
saving those who received Him, pitying them. But remaining
silent as to His judgment and as to what shall happen to those
who have heard His words and have not done them, and that it
were better for them if they had never been born, and that it will
be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorra in the judgment than
for that city which did not receive the word of His disciples."
Against similar deprecation of theft commanded by the God of
the Old Testament another passage is directed : " Who, moreover,
blame it and reckon it [for evil] that the people when about to
set out, by the command of God received vessels of all kinds, and
robes from the Egyptians, and thus departed, from which things
also the tabernacle was made in the desert, not knowing the

104 THE CANON

justifications of God and His arrangements they prove themselves
[bad] as also the presbyter used to say."

Another passage aims at the same false views, and brings
a phrase that particularly interests us : " In the same manner
also the presbyter, the disciple of the apostles, used to dis-
course about the two Testaments, showing that they were both
from one and the same God. For neither was there another
God besides Him that made and shaped us, nor had the words
of those any foundation who say that this world which is in
our day was made by angels or by some other power or by
some other God." The calling the presbyter a disciple of the
apostles is probably a slip of Irenaeus', or it may be of his trans-
lator's, for this is only extant in Latin. The great point here for
our purpose is that Irenaeus makes the presbyter speak of the two
Testaments, that is to say of the Old and the New Testament.
This fits in with what we shall in a moment relate about
Melito of Sardes. Unfortunately, however, in an account of this
remote kind we cannot tell whether the presbyter himself really
used the expression Testaments or not. He may have used it.
But it is (i) presbyter, (2) Irenaeus, (3) translator before it reaches
us. In another place Irenaeus does not write the word presbyter,
but " one of those who went before " : " And as a certain one of
those who went before said, [Christ] by the (divine) stretching
forth of His hands was bringing the two peoples together to the
one God." That is a beautiful thought for the crucifixion.

In another passage we simply have an unknown earlier
author whom Irenaeus quotes, how much earlier does not ap-
pear. " God does all things in measure and in order, and there
is with Him nothing unmeasured, because there is nothing
unnumbered. And someone said well that the unmeasured
Father Himself is measured in the Son. For the' Son is a measure
of the Father, since He also receives Him." Once Irenaeus says
that the earlier Christians were better than those of his day :
" Wherefore those who were before us and indeed much better
than we, nevertheless could not sufficiently reply to those who
were of the school of Valentinus." Our Lord's age Irenaeus
knows from tradition : " But that the first age of thirty years is
the youthful disposition and reached up to the fortieth year,
everyone will agree. From the fortieth, however, and the fiftieth
year it declines already towards the older age, in possession of

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— POLYCARP 1 05

which our Lord used to teach as the Gospel and all the presbyters
testify, who came together with John the disciple of the Lord in
Asia, that John handed this down." It is likely that the source
for these references of Irenaeus to the presbyters was Polycarp.
" But certain of them saw not only John, but also other apostles ;
and they heard these same things from them, and witness to an
account of this kind." All this shows us the living fulness of
these years for the Christians. It is totally false to suppose that
the books of the New Testament were during all these years
living a merely tentative life, and that they were not in the
common possession of the mass of Christians.

Polycarp was bishop at Smyrna, Papias was bishop at
Hierapolis, Melito was bishop at Sardes. We mention him
here in the post-apostolic age as standing near to the other two
earlier bishops with whom he probably had much to do. Melito
presented his Apology to Marcus Antoninus probably in the year
176, but other writings of his are of an earlier time. Onesimus
asked Melito to make what we might call an anthology, a bunch
of flowers, from the Law and the Prophets touching the Saviour
and the faith in general, and apparently asked him to give what
we might name an introduction to the Old Testament, that is to
say, some explanations, presumably for Christians who had been
originally heathen, about the old books. Melito took the matter
seriously and went to the East to make researches about the books
and the events. " Melito to Onesimus the brother, greetings.
Since thou often didst in thy zeal for the word demand that
selections should be made both from the Law and the Prophets
about the Saviour and all our faith, and thou, moreover, didst
earnestly take counsel to learn the details about the old books,
how many their number and what their order might be, I hasten
to do this, understanding thy zeal for the faith and thy love for
learning about the word, and because thou placest before all
things these questions in thy longing towards God, striving for
eternal salvation. Having therefore gone to the East and reached
the place where [it all] was preached and came to pass, and
having learned exactly the books of the Old Testament, I have
sent a list of them." Of course when Onesimus asked about
the old books, he must have had new books also in mind. And
when Melito sent him a list of the Old Testament books, he must
have thought of a New Testament as the other side. But we

106 THE CANON

have no list of New Testament books from him, although we
know that he wrote a book on the Revelation.

After the list of the books Melito said to Onesimus : " From
which also I made the selections, dividing them into six books."
I confess to a certain surprise in the thought that Melito of
Sardes really went to Palestine in order to search out the names
of the books of the Old Testament and to make the selections
from them. I had altogether forgotten that he thus appears to
show that the books of the Old Testament were not in their
entirety at his command in Sardes. To reflect upon the matter,
I have been inclined to think that in the larger synagogues in the
great cities of the Roman Empire the Jews had in their hands, as
a rule, all or the most of the books of the Old Testament. It is
true that Melito's case does not directly clash with this thought,
since it would have been possible, conceivable, that at Melito's
day the authorities in a Jewish synagogue would refuse to show
their holy books to a Christian bishop. Yet possible as this may
be, I do not regard it as likely. The Jews are not known as book
concealers. I am the rather inclined to assume that Melito's
words find their point in the two thoughts, first that the number
of the books was differently given by different Jews ; and second,
that Melito wished both for authoritative certainty as to the
number, which he thought most properly to be sought in
the East, and for an authoritative text from which to make the
selections desired by Onesimus. Further, I think that the greater
knowledge of the exegete who has been upon the ground, was a
special object of Melito's in his journey. In any case we must
use this lateral testimony of Melito's to repress our inclination to
think that each great Christian Church must have of necessity
had a complete set of the books of the Old Testament. The
great Churches will probably have had the Law and the
Prophets and the Psalms. It is not impossible that many a
Jewish synagogue in the diaspora had no more of the Old
Testament than this.

Melito seems to have been a very prolific writer for his time,
although but little has been preserved to our day. We find in
his writings quotations from all the books of the New Testament
save James and Jude and Second and Third John. He gives
(Fragm. 15) a summary of the life of Jesus in his book on Faith,
He writes with an impetus : " From the Law and the Prophets

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— MELITO 107

we gather those things which are foretold of our Lord Jesus
Christ, so that we may demonstrate to your charity that He is
the perfect mind, the Word of God. It is He Himself who
was born before the light, He Himself is the Creator with the
Father, He Himself is the former of man, He Himself it is who
was all things in all : it is He who was the Patriarch in the
patriarchs, in the law the Law, among the priests the Chief Priest,
among the kings the Ruler, among prophets the Prophet, among
Angels the Archangel, in voice the Word, among spirits the Spirit,
in the Father the Son, in God God, King to the ages of ages.
For this is He who to Noah was the Pilot, He who led
Abraham, He who was bound with Isaac, He who wandered
with Jacob, He who was sold with Joseph, He who was Leader
with Moses, He who with Joshua the son of Nun distributed the
inheritance, He who through David and the prophets foretold
His sufferings : He who in the Virgin became incarnate, He
who was born at Bethlehem, He who was swathed in swaddling-
bands in the cradle, He who was seen by the shepherds, He
who was praised by the angels, He who was worshipped by the
wise men, He who was heralded by John, He who gathered
together the apostles, He who preached the kingdom, He
who healed the lame, He who gave light to the blind, He who
raised the dead, He who was seen in the temple, He who was
not believed in by the people, He who was betrayed by Judas,
He who was seized by the priests, He who was judged by Pilate,
He who with nails was fixed to the cross, He who was hung
Mpon the wood, He who was buried in the earth, He who rose
/rom the dead, He who appeared to the apostles, He who was
borne above to heaven, He who sits at the right hand of the
Father, He who is the Rest of the dead, the Finder of the lost,
the Light of those who are in darkness, the Redeemer of captives,
the Guide of the erring, the Refuge of the mourning, the Bride-
groom of the Church, the Charioteer of the cherubim, the Chief
of the army of the angels, God of God, Son from the Father,
Jesus Christ King to the ages. Amen." We feel as we read that,
that Melito had at least in general our New Testament books.
His summing up brings no element that is strange to us.

We have passed by the middle of the second century. The
time of the Old Catholic Church is at hand. Christianity is
consolidating itself. Among orthodox Christians, among the

IOS THE CANON

general body of Christians in the great Church, there is nothing
like the violent rending into two parties which was suggested by
some scholars in the former century, the nineteenth century. It
has sometimes been suggested that Papias, whose writings give
very little from Paul, was an opponent of Paul. I should rather
take it that Papias did not fully comprehend the difference
between his point of view and that of Paul. And I regard it as
likely that the fact that we do not see Paul's writings in his text,
depends in a large measure upon his dreamy fanciful way of
thinking and writing that had no special hold in Pauline Epistles.
The Church is essentially one, aside from the great sects, aside
from Gnostics, and Marcionists, and Montanists, let us say. But
the size of the Church begins to be appreciable. The Christians
feel more and more strongly how many men there are, east and
west and north and south, for whom they are in a measure
responsible, whose opinions are charged to them. And they see
in the growing sects a danger for themselves, a danger for the
Church. The natural simplicity of the first Christian Church is
gone beyond recall. The Churches have already certainly some-
times, like the Church at Smyrna, begun to pray for "peace for
the Churches through all the world."

During this period Christianity has had the great task of
expansion. It had had the duty laid upon it to go out into all
the world and preach and baptize and make disciples. It had
through all these years the need of defending itself, of holding
its ground against the Jews. But that task has gradually begun
to vanish. The Jews have no longer their determining import
for the position and acceptance of the Christian communities on
the great roads of the Roman Empire. Here and there in
remoter corners a little of the old combination of Jew and
Christian confuses the gaze of officials from time to time. That
is all. Christianity has ever in increasing measure found itself
compelled to justify and declare itself over against heathenism.
Now an official was suspicious, now one was curious, now one
was indifferent, now one was overbearing and cruel. For all
their duties the Christians found that the written word was the
least important thing for them. Their first and great duty, the
preaching, was the continuation of the preaching of the apostles.
And that was anything and everything but preaching from texts.
It was the heralding of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE IO9

heavens. It was the preaching of the Son of Man, the Son of
God. This preaching was not preaching upon the Gospels or
out of the Gospels or about the Gospels. It was a Gospel itself.
It was such a segment of a Gospel as the time and the place
permitted the speaker to lay before his hearers. As for the
apostles, the Christians busied themselves less with their words
and more with their thoughts. The Greek language, the
common language of the Roman Empire, played its part in all
this. It was the language of the greater number of the
preachers. In it the books of the New Testament were first
written. Most of all the Christians asked about the facts, the
events of the life of Jesus, less about the notes that had been
written down about that life.

But that is beginning to change. The written reports are
beginning to excite more interest. The power of tradition by
word of mouth is fading gradually away. We see thus far, if
we close our eyes to the rough work of Marcion, nothing that
looks like the exercise of careful critical judgment in efforts to
determine the nature of Christian writings or their origin or their
value for the Church, or their possible danger for the minds of
the unlearned. No one has thus far come forth with the assumed
or with the imposed mission to settle questions about books that
should be used for one purpose or another. Marcion alone has
taken up these points for his followers, but that is of no interest
for the rest of the Christians. The books have had to care for
themselves, to make their own way, fight their own battles, lead
their own retreats. That does not, however, in the least mean,
that the early Christians took, hit or miss without looking at it
twice, any book that was thrust into their hands. Far from it.
The first books arose in small circles in which each man knew
each other. None needed to ask who brought forward the given
book. Everyone saw and knew whence the book came. If the
book came from afar, from Rome to Corinth or to Ephesus or
to Tarsus or to Antioch, each Christian knew again who had
brought it, and whence he had brought it, and why he had
brought it.

Little by little during all this post-apostolic age the written
treasures of the Churches had been growing and gathering. The
great Churches in the great cities on the great roads of travel
will have at a very early time gotten by far the larger part

IIO THE CANON

of what we now have in the New Testament. City after city
and Church after Church will have sent in its contribution to the
list. In the provinces and in the villages the process will have
spread but slowly. There was too little money and too little
education to secure for the small places for decades that which
had long been in the hands of the large Churches. The same
influence wrought in a like manner in reference to other books,
to books that were not to the same degree acceptable to the
Churches. A certain uncertainty and a vacillating determination
will here and there have played a part in helping a book upwards
into the more treasured, or downwards into the less favoured
regions of Christian literary liking. No authority saw to the due
criticism. The book rose or fell. It was more used, it was less
used. But one thing was gradually going forth from the process
of writing and of preserving and of valuing the books, and
that was the general acceptance of the mass of the books of
the New Testament as books that were of peculiar value to
Christians. This peculiar value showed itself in their being
placed with or even placed before the books of the Old
Testament. The equality of the two series of books came
most distinctly to view in the public services of the Churches.
On the other hand, the lack of value that showed itself in the
case of other books, was seen more clearly than anywhere
else in the fact that these other books were not allowed
in the public services of the Churches to claim for themselves
the first rank, to reach the point at which they could be read
at the chief place in the Church as the expression of words
which God had to say to Men.

Ill

III.

THE A GE OF IREN& US.

160-200.

In the post-apostolic age we found Christians from widely
distant lands meeting and crossing each other's paths, and
giving witness on one side and on the other to the oneness
of the great body of Christians, to the undisturbed sequence
of Christian tradition, and to the silently presupposed existence
of the more important books of the New Testament. The
period to which we now direct our gaze will uphold the character
of early Christianity in respect to widely spread Churches, and
in respect to men of letters who journeyed afar, and who were
therefore able to give practical examples of ecclesiastical unity,
who in their journeys did much to knit more closely the bonds
of fellowship which united the Churches to each other, and
who in their discussions or in their works did much to prepare
or to usher in the first great literary and scientific period of
the growing Church. We have therefore to do especially with
Hegesippus who carries us to Palestine but does not leave us
there, to Tatian who draws our eyes towards Syria only to
send us back to the West, to a curious fragment of a list of
the books of the New Testament, to the Bishop Dionysius
of Corinth and to the Bishop Pinytus of Cnossus on the Island
of Crete, to Athenagoras of Athens, then to the East again to
the Bishop Theophilus of Antioch, then far to the West to
the letter written by the Churches of Vienne and Lyons in
Gaul. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, binds the East to the
West, for he came from Smyrna. A heathen named Celsus
will call for a word or two. And we must cast a glance
at one and the other of the versions into which the early
Church translated her sacred books so as to make them more
easily accessible in wider circles.

112 THE CANON

Hegesippus is a very interesting man, and he will be still
more interesting when someone draws forth his book from
a Syrian or an Armenian or a Coptic library. He was probably
born in Palestine. Eusebius, referring to his use of Semitic
languages, adds : " showing that he himself had come to the
faith from the Hebrews." Sometimes people have proceeded
from that observation of Eusebius to reason that Hegesippus
was a rabid Jew of the Ebionitic Christian group. There is,
however, not only no proof of anything of that kind, but there
is plenty to show that precisely the opposite was the case.
For we shall see that he was a Christian in good and regular
standing, and that he ever bore himself accordingly. He should
by rights have been born at an early date, seeing that
Eusebius declares that he " was of the first succession of the
apostles." That phrase cannot, however, well be taken very
exactly, unless — what no one reports — Hegesippus lived to
be extremely old. Hegesippus is the author who has given
us at length the story of the martyrdom of James the brother
of Jesus, and I shall give it here as a guarantee for Hegesippus'
knowledge of the early Church, but as well as an example of
the Jewish character of the Christianity of James and of his
friend the Apostle Paul, who had taken a vow at Jerusalem
a few years before, but escaped immediate death owing to his
Roman citizenship.

James showed himself a man (Eus. H. E. 2. 23): "The
brother of the Lord, James, receives the Church in succession
with the apostles, the one who was by all called the Just from
the times of the Lord till our day, since many were called James.
This one was holy from his mother's womb. He drank no wine
nor spirits, nor did he eat meat. A razor did not go up upon
his head, he did not anoint himself with oil, and he used no
bath. For him alone it was allowed to go into the Holies. For
he wore no wool but only linen, and he alone went into the
temple, and was found lying on his knees, and begging for the
remission [of the sins] of the people, so that his knees were
hardened off like the knees of a camel, because of his ever
bending them praying to God and begging remission for the
people. And by reason of the exceeding greatness of his
righteousness he was called Just, and Oblias, which in Greek is
bulwark of the people and righteousness, as the prophets make

THE AGE OF IREN^US— HEGESIPPUS 113

plain touching him." Here I must make a parenthesis. In
another place (Eus. H. E. 4. 22) Hegesippus tells about seven
heresies or diverse opinions among the Jews, and this I must put
here : " And there were different opinions in the circumcision
among the sons of Israel, of which these were against the tribe of
Judah and of the Christ : Essaeans, Galilaeans, Hemerobaptists,
Masbotheans, Samaritans, Sadducees, Pharisees."

Now we go back to the story of James : " Some, then, of the
seven heresies among the people, of those that I wrote of above
in these memoirs, inquired of him what the door of Jesus was.
And he said this was the Saviour. From which circumstance some
believed that Jesus is the Christ. And the aforesaid heresies
believed not that there is a resurrection, or that each man
will have to return [judgment] according to his works. But
as many as believed, it was because of James. Many then
also of the rulers believing, there was a tumult of the Jews
and scribes and Pharisees saying, that the whole people is
in danger of awaiting Jesus the Christ. Therefore coming
together with James, they said : We beg you, hold the people
back, since it is going astray to Jesus, as if He were the Christ.
We beseech thee to persuade all those coming to the Day of
the Passover, about Jesus. For all obey thee. For we bear
witness to thee, and all the people [bears witness] that thou
art just, and that thou dost not respect persons. Persuade thou,
then, the people not to go astray about Jesus. For all the people
and we all obey thee. Stand, therefore, on the pinnacle of
the temple, so that thou mayest be visible from above, and that
thy words may be readily heard by all the people. For on
account of the Passover all the tribes have come together,
also with the Gentiles. So the aforesaid scribes and Pharisees
stood James upon the pinnacle of the temple, and cried to him
and said : O Just One, whom we all ought to obey, since the
people goes astray behind Jesus the crucified, announce to us
what the door of Jesus is. And he answered with a loud voice :
Why do you ask me about Jesus the Son of Man, and He is
seated in Heaven at the right hand of the Great Power, and
He is going to come upon the clouds of Heaven. And many
were receiving these words and rejoicing at the testimony of
James, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. Then again
the same scribes and Pharisees said to each other : We did
8

114 THE CANON

ill affording such a testimony for Jesus. But let us go up
and throw him down, so that fearing they may not believe in
him. And they all cried : O ! O ! even the Just One has
gone astray. And they fulfilled the scripture written in Isaiah :
Let us take away the Just One, for he is unprofitable to us.
Therefore they shall eat the fruits of their wrorks. And going
up they cast down the Just One, and said to each other : Let
us stone James the Just. And they began to stone him, since
in falling down he had not died. But turning he kneeled saying :
I beseech thee, Lord God Father, forgive them : for they know
not what they do. And thus they stoning him, one of the
priests, of the sons of Rechab the son of Rachabim of those
witnessed to by Jeremiah the prophet, cried, saying: Stop!
What do ye ? The Just One is praying for you. And one of them
took a fuller's bar with which they beat the garments, and
brought it down on the head of the Just One. And thus he
became a martyr. And they buried him in the place by the
temple, and his pillar still remains there by the temple. This
one became a true martyr both to Jews and Greeks, that Jesus
is the Christ. And immediately Vespasian besieges them."

That shows us how the early Christians lived and died, and how
well Hegesippus knew about them. That is taken from the fifth
book of his Memoirs. But Eusebius shows us in another passage
that Hegesippus also saw and wrote of what the heathen did.
Eusebius (H. E. 4. 7, 8) recounts the heathen Gnostics, and ob-
serves : " Nevertheless then the truth again brought up, against
these whom we have mentioned, and set in the midst of the fray
several of her champions, warring against the godless heresies not
alone by unwritten debates but also by written proofs. Among
these Hegesippus was well known, from whom we have already
quoted many sayings, as presenting from his traditions some things
from the times of the apostles. So then this [Hegesippus] in
five books giving the memoirs of the unerring tradition of the
apostolic preaching in the most simple order of writing, notes
for the time alluded to (or for the time that he knew about)
touching those who at the beginning founded the idols, writing
about in this way : To which they set up cenotaphs and temples
as up to this day, among whom is also Antinous the slave of
the Emperor Hadrian, where also the Antinous game is held,
lasting up to our time, for he also built a city named for

THE AGE OF IREN^US— HEGESIPPUS 1 1 5

Antinous, and (instituted?) prophets." Eusebius (H. E. 4. 21)
shows us how highly he valued Hegesippus by the list in which
he places him at the head in referring to that time : "And there
flourished at that time in the Church not only Hegesippus whom
we know from what was said above, but also Dionysius the bishop
of the Corinthians, and Pinytus another bishop of the Christians
in Crete, and, further, Philip and Apolinarius and Melito, both
Musanos and Modestus, and above all Irenseus, from [all of]
whom also the orthodoxy of the apostolical tradition of the sound
faith has come down to us in writing. Hegesippus therefore,
in the five [books of] Memoirs which have reached us, has left
behind him a very full minute of his own opinion, in which
he sets forth that he held converse with a great many bishops
on his journey as far as Rome, and that he received from all
the same teaching. It is fitting to hear him, after he has said
something about the letter of Clement to the Corinthians, adding
the following : And the Church of the Corinthians held fast
to the sound word until Primus who was bishop in Corinth,
among whom I conversed as I sailed to Rome, and I spent
no few days with the Corinthians, during which we were refreshed
with the sound word. And coming to Rome, I stayed there
till the time of Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. And
Soter followed Anicetus, after whom Eleutherus. And in each
bishopric and in each city things are as the Law heralds and
the prophets and the Lord." Observe Hegesippus' expression.
Everything is in order in all the bishops' sees and cities that
he has visited, because it all agrees with what the Law demands
and the prophets and the Lord. He does not speak of the
New Testament books. The Law and the Prophets are books.
But he does not place other books over against them but simply
the Lord, and that is, what the Lord said.

Hegesippus (Eus. H. E. 4. 22) gives us further word of
what happened in the earliest Church at Jerusalem, and de-
scribes the first steps of unsound doctrine. "And the same
[Hegesippus] describes the beginnings of the heresies of his
day in these words : and after James the Just had died as
martyr with the very same saying as the Lord," — that was,
the : Father forgive them : for they know not what they do, —
"again Simeon the son of his uncle Clopas was appointed
bishop, whom all pressed forward as being the second cousin

Il6 THE CANON

of the Lord. Therefore they called the Church a virgin. For
it was not yet corrupted with empty speeches. But Thebouthis
begins to corrupt it because he was not made bishop, being from
the seven heresies (and he was among the people), from whom
was Simon, whence the Simonians, and Cleobios, whence the
Cleobians, and Dositheus, whence the Dositheans, and Gorthaeus,
whence the Gorathenians, and Masbotheus, whence the
Masbotheans. From these the Menandrianists and Marcionists,
and Carpocratians and Valentinians, and Basilidians and
Satornilians, each separately and for themselves introduced
their own view. From these [came] false Christs, false prophets,
false apostles, who divided the unity of the Church with corrupt
words against God and against His Christ."

No one can say that Hegesippus was not awake to the move-
ments of the times. His journey to Rome fell in between the
years 157 and 168, seeing that it was under Anicetus, but he
seems to have remained there or to have been there again, in
case he moved about among the cities of the West, until some-
where between 177 and 190 during the time of Eleutherus.
It was under Eleutherus that he wrote his Memoirs. He is
said to have died under Commodus, and that is to be under-
stood as between the years 180 and 192. Eusebius uses
Hegesippus as a witness for the condition of affairs in Corinth
at the time that the letter of Clement was written, and gives
us at the same time a glimpse of the conditions of exchanging
or distributing books among the Churches. After referring
to Clement, Eusebius (H. E. 3. 16) says: "It is well known
then that a single letter of this Clement is in our hands,
both great and wonderful, which is represented as from the
Church of the Romans to the Church of the Corinthians,
there having been just then an uproar at Corinth. We know
that this letter was also used publicly before the assembly in
very many Churches, not only in old times, but also in our
own very day. And that at the time aforesaid the things of
the uproar of the Corinthians were stirred up, Hegesippus is
a sufficient witness." Hegesippus had, as we saw above, spent
some time at Corinth, and had learned, therefore, all about this
letter and the conditions there. We cannot at all tell from
all the stray fragments of Hegesippus' Memoirs that are before
us what kind of a book these Memoirs were. They cannot

THE AGE OF IREN.EUS— HEGESIPPUS WJ

have been a chronologically disposed history, because we are
directly told that the story about the death of James given
above was in the fifth book, whereas James stood at the
beginning of the Church.

We have given much from Hegesippus that does not bear
directly upon the criticism of the canon, but which was calculated
to give us insight into the character, position, advantages, and
information of the man. It seems to me to be clear that few
men of all that time can have been in so good a position to give
us in words and without words a notion of the attitude of the
Christians towards the books of the New Testament. In the
first place, Eusebius (H. E. 4. 22) gives us a few words about
Hegesippus : " And he writes many other things, part of which
we have already mentioned above, putting them exactly where
they belonged in the times of the history. And he not only
gives us some things from the Gospel according to the Hebrews,
but also from the Syrian and especially from the Hebrew
dialect, showing that he himself became a believer from among
the Hebrews. And he refers to other things as if from a
Jewish unwritten tradition. And not only this one [Hegesippus],
but also Irenaeus and the whole chorus of the ancients called
the proverbs of Solomon all glorious wisdom. And speaking of
the books called apocryphal, he relates that some of them were
falsely concocted in his times by some heretics." Here we have
an account of certain sources from which Hegesippus drew.

He used the Gospel to the Hebrews. That is, of course,
the book to which reference has been so often made. The
connection makes it quite clear that Eusebius regards it as a
book written in a Semitic language. It is probably not the
little collection of the sayings of Jesus that Matthew made,
but another book more like a full Gospel ; and it is quite
possible that the name has misled Eusebius, and that the
Gospel as Hegesippus knew it was a Greek Gospel and not in
the Aramaic tongue. Then Eusebius says that Hegesippus
quotes some things from the Syrian and especially from the
Hebrew dialect. What can these two be ? The Syriac so close
upon the Gospel to the Hebrews might be a Syriac Gospel, and
the Hebrew dialect also points to a Gospel. But I am upon the
whole not inclined to think that that is the meaning. The
sentence bristles with Semitic wisdom, and it would not have

I I 8 THE CANON

been in the least out of the way for Eusebius, the bishop of
Caesarea in Palestine, to have had some knowledge of Syrian and
Aramaic. If we tried to distinguish between the Syriac and the
Hebrew dialect, we should be forced to suggest that the Syriac
was perhaps a North-Syrian dialect, say from the district near
Aleppo, and that the Hebrew dialect, as no one then spoke
Hebrew, was the Aramean used at and near Jerusalem, which
had itself a century or two before come down from northern
Syria. But I do not think for a moment that Hegesippus has in
view a Syrian or a Hebrew Gospel in the two latter expressions.
Had he given " some things " from the Gospel according to the
Hebrews and some things from a Syriac Gospel and some things
from a Hebrew Gospel, it is scarcely conceivable that he should
not have given some characteristic traits from the words and
deeds of Jesus which are not to be found in our Gospels. And
it is as little conceivable that a mass of such material should
have been passed in utter silence by Eusebius, who is ever on the
watch for new things.

Instead of wishing that we had no one knows what from
those "Gospels," we only need to take the matter up from
the other end and ask ourselves what Eusebius really gives us
from Hegesippus. And we may feel sure that the things which
Eusebius found worth transferring from Hegesippus' pages to
his own were at least in part things that he drew from the
Syrian and Hebrew that Eusebius mentions with such impressive-
ness. If there were any Christians anywhere who' used a
Semitic dialect that could by some play of fancy, according to
the inaccuracy of all these dialect designations in Semitic
countries, be called a Hebrew dialect, it was the Christians in
southern Palestine, the Christians in Jerusalem, or those ex-
pelled from Jerusalem and living as they could somewhere in that
neighbourhood. What has Eusebius drawn from Hegesippus
that might be taken from such a source? Precisely the story
of the death of James. There is "something" that may have
come from the Syrian or the Hebrew, let us say from the
Aramean of Judah. James and his followers are the Jewish
Christians by way of eminence. But I am actually going to give
another long quotation from Hegesippus. The story of James'
death brought the tradition of the New Testament squarely down
to the year 70. After James' death : " Straightway Vespasian

THE AGE OF IREN^US— HEGESIPPUS 1 19

besieges them." The passage that I am going to give now
stretches this tradition down about to the end of the century,
perhaps over into the beginning of the second century ; and this
is, again, a passage that must have come from Jerusalem, that
could have come from nowhere else, and that, therefore, was
probably from the Hebrew dialect. We shall see how the meshes
of the net of tradition are being woven more and more securely
together. There will probably in the end be no place for a book
to slip through to get away from the grasp of the Church. Before
I begin the story from Hegesippus I must call attention to the
fact that the persons to whom our attention is first to be called
are the descendants of Jude. The Epistle of Jude interests us.
It interests us to know that down to the second century there
were men of his family in view and known.

Hegesippus (Eus. H. E. 3. 20) says : " And there were still
left some from the family of the Lord, grandsons of Jude, of
the one called His brother according to the flesh, who were
charged by hostile men with being of the family of David."
A moment before Eusebius had said that it was some of the
heretics who accused them of being of the family of David and
of the family of the Christ. Hegesippus continues : " These,
then, Ivocatus led to the Emperor Domitian. For he feared
the coming of Christ just as Herod did" — that points to the
second chapter of Matthew — " and he asked them if they were
from David, and they said Yes. Then he asked them what pos-
sessions they had or how much money they were masters of." —
He clearly wished to know whether they would be in a position
to pay for troops and to bribe people in general to help them. —
" And they both said they only had nine thousand denars, half
belonging to each of them. And they said, this they had in
money, but in the reckoning up of the land they had only thirty-
nine acres, and that the taxes had to come out of that, and that
they made their living cultivating the land themselves. Then
also they showed their hands, the hardness of their body being
a witness for their working themselves, and showing the wales
imprinted on their own hands from the unceasing labour. And
when they were asked about the Christ and His kingdom, of
what kind it would be and where and when it would appear,
that they answered, that it was not of the world and not earthly,
but heavenly and angelic, and that it would be at the end of the

120 THE CANON

age, at which time He coming in glory will judge living and
dead, and will give to each one according to his works. Upon
which Domitian, not having anything against them but despising
them as poor people, let them go free and stopped by decree the
persecution against the Church. And that they then dismissed
became leaders of the Churches, on the one hand as witnesses "
— they had stood before the emperor — " and on the other hand
as from the family of the Lord. And that they, there being
peace, continued to live up to the time of Trajan. This
Hegesippus relates."

" After Nero and Domitian, at the point of which we are now
searching out the times," — thus writes Eusebius (H. E. 3. 32),
— " it is related that here and there and city by city by reason
of uprisings of the common folk, the persecution was excited
against us, in which, as we have received word, Simeon the son
of Clopas, whom we have shown to have been appointed the
second bishop of the Church in Jerusalem, laid down his life
in martyrdom. And of this that very same one is a witness of
whom we have before used different statements, Hegesippus.
Who then telling about certain heretics, adds the relation that
therefore at this very time enduring accusation from these, the
one named as a Christian [Simeon] having been tortured many
days and astonishing not only the judge but also those about
him in the highest degree, was finally borne away almost with
the passion of the Lord. But there is nothing like hearing the
author relating these very things word for word about thus :
Some of these, namely of the heretics, accused Simeon the son
of Clopas as being from David and a Christian, and thus he
becomes a martyr, being one hundred and twenty years old,
while Trajan was emperor and Atticus was consul." — That was
probably about the beginning of the second century, perhaps
around the year 104. — Eusebius continues: "And the same
[Hegesippus] says that then also it came to pass that his
[Simeon's] accusers, the ones from the royal tribe of the Jews,
being sought for, were taken prisoners as being from it. And by
a calculation anyone would say that Simeon also must have been
one of the personal seers and hearers of the Lord, using as a
proof the length of the time of his life and the fact that the scrip-
ture of the Gospels makes mention of Mary the wife of Clopas,
from whom also above the account showed that he was born."

THE AGE OF IREN^US — HEGESIPPUS 121

"More than this the same man [Hegesippus], relating these
things about the ones mentioned, adds that until those times
the Church remained a pure and uncorrupted virgin, those
trying to corrupt the sound canon of the saving preaching, if
there were any such, until then remaining concealed as in some
obscure darkness. When the holy chorus of the apostles
received a various end of life, and that generation passed by of
those who had been held worthy to hear the very utterances of
the divine wisdom, then the system of the godless delusion took
its start, through the deceit of the teachers teaching other
doctrines, who also, inasmuch as no one of the apostles was
longer left, now with uncovered head tried to herald abroad the
falsely so-called knowledge (Gnosis) against the heralding of the
truth." The great point of the Simeon story for us is the age of
Simeon. He was a hundred and twenty years old at the time of
his martyrdom. We do not know in what year that was, save that
it was between 98 and 117, and I have suggested 104 because
of the fact that an Attius, which is almost Atticus, was then
consul. But let us go to the year 117. If Simeon happened to
be martyred in the last year of Trajan's reign, with his hundred
and twenty years he would have been born three years " before
Christ," that is to say, a single year later than Jesus. How much
he must have known of the life of Jesus from the very first and
how much he must have seen and heard of the life of the
Christians between the crucifixion and the reign of Trajan !

But to return to Hegesippus : the remark of Eusebius about
the books that are called apocryphal deserves attention. It is
true that Eusebius gives no names of books, and it is possible
that Hegesippus mentioned no names. Yet when he says that
Hegesippus relates that some of these were fabrications of
heretics of his own day, we feel sure that with that word the
genuine books of the New Testament are placed for Hegesippus
beyond all doubt as from the time of the apostles. The
passage of Christians hither and thither, and the interchange
of thought and of life, were far too incessant to admit of the
successful fathering of books that were not genuine upon the
apostles. When we reflect upon Eusebius' words about
Hegesippus and the Hebrew and the Syriac and the Jewish
tradition, we shall at once understand that it is not the intention
of Eusebius to say that Hegesippus did not know our New

122 THE CANON

Testament books. He calls attention to the unknown, the
uncommon in Hegesippus ; the common, the every day part, has
no special interest for him. When we get Hegesippus' five
books, we shall see what he calls apocryphal. As the name of
Jude occurred above, when we read of his grandsons who were
such plain everyday farmers or small peasants, the thought may
have arisen, that these grandsons scarcely point to a grandfather
who could have written the Epistle of Jude. To that is to be
observed first, that we do not with mathematical certainty know
who wrote the letter ; second, that the letter purports to be from
this Jude whose grandsons are alive at the end of the century ;
third, that Jude might have dictated the letter to a man who
could write Greek ; and fourth, that even in this enlightened
twentieth century there may be found grandsons of facile
authors who are themselves not able to write books. So far
from it that Hegesippus did not know our New Testament books,
Hegesippus will undoubtedly have known the mass of our New
Testament books. If there were some of them that he had not
known in Palestine, he will have become acquainted with them
at Corinth and surely at Rome, towards which all flowed. But
he probably knew the most of them before he travelled west-
ward. He probably had the Scriptures partly in view when he
spoke or wrote of the unity of the Church, only that still for
him the tradition by word of mouth seemed to be the weighty
thing.

If we try to gather together the fragments of knowledge that
Eusebius' words about Hegesippus and out of Hegesippus' five
books of Memoirs have given us, we shall find that the harvest
is large, although not yet in every point precise. Dying between
1 80 and 192, we may regard it as likely that Hegesippus had
come to be seventy years old or thereabouts, and had been born
therefore about no; were he sixty years old he would have
been born about 120. Taking the earlier date with the state-
ments as to his reaching Rome, which do not precisely agree
with each other, we may conjecture that he came thither about
160, being fifty years of age. A certain ripeness of experience
might be looked for from a man who set out to take a general
account of stock in the Christian Church. A very young man
would not be likely to conceive the thought of searching
through the lands for correct teaching and for due tradition.

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— TATIAN 1 23

And the Churches would easily have viewed with suspicion a
young man who came to them upon an errand of that kind.
Hegesippus may well have begun his journey then as a man
high up in the forties. Regarding it as certain that before
Hegesippus reached Corinth and Rome the mass of our New
Testament books were in common use in those two cities, we
look upon the absence of any note of surprise or of dissent
from him in respect to these books as a sign that he was
accustomed to the use of the same books. Eusebius has with
the greatest good sense not thought it necessary to give indefinite
proofs for the generally accepted books, seeing that with his
clear view of the early history of Christianity he felt sure that
these books had from the first been in the undisturbed posses-
sion of the members of the great Churches. Had he found in
Hegesippus signs of dissent from the books used by the Church,
he would have told us of it. We may rely upon that. We have
no reason thus far to think that Eusebius did not play fair with
his sources.

If Hegesippus in all probability came from Palestine, Tatian
came from Assyria. We do not know very much about him
save that he was brought up as a Greek, and that he eagerly
studied the various philosophies, and was initiated into various
of the heathen mysteries. Perhaps Syrian or Armenian manu-
scripts will some day give us more. He went to the West, to
Rome, as a heathen. While there, probably under the influence
of Justin Martyr, he became a Christian. He was very much
devoted then to his teacher Justin, who died perhaps in the
year 165. Tatian attributes his conversion to Christianity to
writings. This may well be a figure of speech, in so far as he
may have been led by the exhortations of Christians to the
Scriptures. But it is interesting to see him put the Scriptures
in that place. He tells in his Speech to the Greeks, that is to
say to the heathen, how hollow and foul he had found their
philosophy and their religious mysteries to be. And then (ch. 29)
he says : " Coming back to myself, I sought around in what way
I might be able to find out that which is true. And while I
was turning over in my mind the most earnest questions, it so
fell out that I lighted upon certain barbaric writings," — everything
is barbaric that is not Greek, — "more ancient in comparison
with the opinions of the Greeks, and more divine in comparison

124 THE CANON

with their error. And it came to pass that I was persuaded by
these books because of the modesty of the way of writing and
the artlessness of those who spoke and the comprehensibility of
the making of all things and the foretelling of things to come
and the propriety of the precepts and the oneness of the rule
over all things. And my soul being thus taught of God, I
understood that those things (the heathen things) had the form
of condemnation, whereas these things do away with the servitude
in the world and free us from many rulers and from ten thousand
tyrants, and give us not what we had not received, but what,
having received under the error, we were prevented from
keeping." Those books were the books of the Old Testament
certainly ; possibly he also had the Gospels in view.

Tatian was not one of the men who go half-way. He had
been much displeased by the looseness and corruption that he
had found everywhere in heathenism, and he was eager to go to
the greatest perfection possible in Christianity. Under Justin he
remained a member of the Church. The heathen philosopher
Crescens attacked both Justin and Tatian. After Justin's death
Tatian taught in Justin's place. It may have been about the
year 172 or 173 that he finally broke off his more direct connec-
tion with the Church. Some say that he never completely broke
away from it. At any rate he went back to the East and became
a leader — to speak in modern terms — of a monastic body. That
is to say, he did away with marriage and with eating flesh and
with drinking wine. But there were then no monks. These
people were Selfmasters. One thing that he did strikes directly
into our criticism, and goes very far to prove the many claims
I have made to the continued unquestioned existence and use
of the books of the New Testament in the Church up to this
date. For Tatian made a Harmony of the Gospels. Now what
Gospels did he use? The Cospel to the Hebrews, or a Syriac or
a Hebrew Gospel ? The whole subject is still somewhat lacking
in clearness. But Tatian appears to have made his Harmony
in Greek. That he made it in Greek fits also well with the
name which he himself appears to have given the work. He
called it the Through Four, which is a name taken directly
from the four Gospels. The Greek name is Diatessaron. But
what four Gospels did he use? Our four Gospels. The four
Gospels of the Church. The only one of the four that anyone

THE AGE OF IREN^US— TATIAN 1 25

would have been inclined to have doubts about, would have
been the Gospel of John, and Tatian began precisely with
verses from that Gospel.

He appears to have known well pretty much all our New
Testament books, and I affirm that an educated Christian at
Rome at that time could not help knowing them. Of course,
Tatian could not go into scripture quotations out of either Testa-
ment in his Speech to the Greeks. He would not have found
much in them of the heathen systems and gods that he holds up
before their eyes in derision and scorn. He certainly used many
of the Epistles of Paul. He is said to have rejected the
Epistles to Timothy, probably because of the advice to take a
little wine. He insisted upon it, however, that Titus was genuine.

Eusebius (H. E. 4. 29) gives from Irenseus some account of
the group of heretics of which Tatian became one, and speaks
at the same time hardly of Tatian, as became a good orthodox
man who was the pink of propriety and who attacked by reason
of office all heretics. I do not mean to say that Irenseus was
a bad man. But he was a heresy hunter. He says : " From
(coming from) Satorninus and Marcion those called Selfmasters
preached no marriage, setting aside the ancient creation of God,
and calmly denouncing the making of male and female for the
generation of men. And they introduced continence on the
part of those among them whom they called the full-souled
ones, displeasing God who made all things. And they deny
the salvation which is from the first Creator. And this now
was conceived by them, a certain Tatian first leading in this
blasphemy, who having been a hearer of Justin's, so long as he
was with him brought nothing of this kind to the light, but
after his martyrdom leaving the Church, made overweening with
the notion of being a teacher and puffed up at the thought of
being different from the others, he grounded a special kind of
school, mythologising about certain unseen eons like those from
Valentinus, and proclaiming that marriage was corruption and
whoredom, almost like Marcion and Satorninus, and making a
proof from the salvation of Adam by himself. This much then
from Irenseus. A little later a certain Severus, laying hold of
the name of the aforesaid heresy, became the cause for those
who started from it of the name drawn from him of Severians.
These, then, use the Law and the Prophets and the Gospels,

126 THE CANON

interpreting in their own way the thoughts of the sacred writings.
And blaspheming Paul the apostle, they do away with his Epistles ;
nor do they receive the Acts of the Apostles. Their former
leader, Tatian, putting together a certain connection and collec-
tion, I do not know how, of the Gospels, attached to it the
name Diatessaron, which also still now is in the hands of
some. And they say that he dared to change some of the
sayings of the apostle, as correcting the syntax of their ex-
pression."

Eusebius then tells us that Tatian wrote a great deal, and
he praises his Speech to the Greeks, which deduces all the
wisdom of the Greeks from Moses and the prophets. In all
this account from Irenaeus and Eusebius we see the spirit
which at once accuses a man, even one who takes up an ascetic
thought, of bad motives, the spirit which has in every age
disgraced Christianity. The combination of the Law and the
Prophets and the Gospels is striking. That the Severians
interpreted in their own way was a matter of course. Neither
Irenaeus nor Eusebius did anything else. But observe the fact
that these people do away with Paul's Epistles. That can have
only one single sense, and that is, that the Church all around
and for long years before this time, let us say it up and down
since the days of Paul had treasured his Epistles. It is almost
worth a mild heresy to get in this negative way the confirmation
of what we have all along insisted upon. These Epistles of
Paul were not just at this time coming into use, and these
Severians did not merely say : " No ! we do not agree with it.
We shall not accept these Epistles." The Epistles were there
long before the Severians were, just as the Epistle of James
was there long before Luther called it "a straw letter." And
it is very good, too, that Eusebius tells us that they did not
receive the Acts of the Apostles. That book of Acts was
there, too, years before. But their rejection of it makes its
presence visible again precisely here.

Eusebius' statement that Tatian was charged with changing
some of the sayings of the apostle as if he were bettering the
syntax, needs looking at. In the first place, the apostle is, of
course, Paul. In the second century "the apostle" is pretty
much always Paul. In the next place, if Tatian really did try to
improve the Greek of some of Paul's wild sentences, it would not

THE AGE OF IREN^US— TATIAN 1 27

be very strange, and it would agree with the work which not at
all unorthodox Alexandrian grammarians are suspected of having
done at a later date. But, in the third place, it is in reality quite
likely that the good people who spread this accusation were people
who were not enough versed in the history and condition of the
text of the New Testament. It is quite possible that what
they thought were changed, corrected sentences, were simply
manuscripts with other readings, or simply signs that Tatian
had used manuscripts with other readings. And we may further
add that the readings which Tatian had may just as well here
and there, or even in general, have been better readings than
the ones that his opponents supposed to be the right readings.
These are the theoretical possibilities. What the precise state
of the case was, we could only tell by receiving the two sets of
readings.

If we remember that books were at that time rolls, and that
the four Gospels will have been four rolls, which must have been
both dear and bulky and troublesome to compare with each
other passage for passage, it will be easy to see that Tatian's
condensing of the four Gospels into one convenient Harmony in
one book must have met what a bookseller with modern views
would call a pressing need of the day. The success of the book
showed that the Church appreciated the work. It was translated
into Syriac, supposing that we are right in assuming that it was
originally Greek, and it passed in some shape or other, or much
misshapen, into other languages. Now a Greek bishop about
the middle of the fifth century gives us a view of the way in
which this book had by that time come into vogue in his parts.
It is Theodoret, who became bishop of Cyrus on the Euphrates
in Upper Syria m the year 423. He writes (Haer. Fab. 1. 20) :
"And Tatian the Syrian became at first a sophist," — that
is Theodoret's short way of giving a heretic a not very nice
title, and getting round the fact of the wide philosophical and
heathen religious researches of Tatian, — "and thereafter was a
pupil of the divine Justin the martyr. This one also put
together the Gospel called Diatessaron, not only cutting away
the genealogies, but also the other things so far as they show
that the Lord was born from the seed of David after the flesh.
And not only the people of his society used this, but also those
who follow the apostolical dogmas, not having known the evil

128 THE CANON

tendency of the composition, but using it in simplicity as a short
book. And I found more than two hundred such books held
in honour in the Churches among us, and gathering them all
together I put them aside, and introduced instead of them the
Gospels of the four evangelists."

Long after that time copies of the book itself and of com-
mentaries on it were found in some places. We should be glad
if we could find a genuine copy of it to-day. From Theodoret's
description it is perfectly clear that only our four Gospels were
used in the Diatessaron. He would have pounced like a vulture
on any sign of an apocryphal Gospel in it. We have another
reference to this Diatessaron from the Syrian side of Syria,
Theodoret having given us the Greek side. Somewhere about the
middle of the third century it is likely that the apocryphal book
called the Teaching of Addai was written, and perhaps in or
near Edessa. This book says that the early Christians in Edessa
heard the Old Testament read, and with it "the New [Testament]
of the Diatessaron." We know further from Dionysius Bar
Salibi, who wrote near the close of the twelfth century, that
Ephrsem the Syrian, a deacon in Edessa, who died in the
year 373, wrote a commentary on the Diatessaron, parts of
which commentary we now have from an Armenian translation.
We also have an Arabic translation from a Syriac text ; but this
and a Latin form especially are not accurate reproductions of
the original, the Latin being not in the least from the real text
of the Diatessaron. Tatian's book did a long service, and will
certainly not have corrupted the Christianity of any reader,
much as Theodoret was exercised about its use in the Churches
near him.

Tatian has placed before our view a man who grew up a
heathen, affording a contrast to Hegesippus, who appears to
have been of Jewish descent. Like Hegesippus he was a man
of travel, and like him he visited Rome. Hegesippus had the
practical unity of the Church in view. Tatian regarded purity
as an aim that preceded unity. His heretical ideas have in no
way injured or lessened his value for our criticism. He had as
a good orthodox Christian the most of our books, and he only
made their existence the more clear when he as a heretic
discarded some things that he had before used. He holds an
altogether unique position in the history of the New Testament.

THE AGE OF IREN^US— MURATORIAN FRAGMENT 1 29

Aside from his Diatessaron, no other book of such importance
ever gained such a foothold in the Christian Church. One
point should not be overlooked, namely, the fact that Tatian
did not hesitate to pare away from the New Testament the
parts which he did not consider good. We have no information
as to whether in this he was led by the influence of Marcion or
not. The likeness of some of the views attributed to him to
views of Marcion's would make Marcion's example seem all the
more probable. Should any one, however, be desirous of con-
cluding from Tatian's treatment of the Gospels that the Church
then, the Church of his day, did not hold the Gospels to be equal
to the divine Scriptures of the Old Testament, we have only to
recall the two facts, first that a heretic freed himself from the
opinion of the Church, and second that Tatian as well as Marcion
seems to have thought the God of the Old Testament creation
to be an inferior God. The trend of these two facts goes
nevertheless to show that the whole question of religious, of
sacred books was not regarded as one of very strict importance,
or as one that had been definitely and once for all settled, even
for the Old Testament.

We now come to a remarkable fragment of an old book that
is extremely valuable for the criticism of the canon. It is called
the Muratorian fragment, after the name of the Italian historian
and librarian Muratori who first published it. Muratori found
the fragment in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. He seems to
have thought that it would not be prudent to publish it as a
fragment that bore upon the canon, seeing that its statements
are sometimes peculiar. He therefore printed it as a specimen
of the very careless way in which the scribes in the Middle Ages
copied manuscripts. The actual writing is of the eighth or
perhaps even of the seventh century, but the contents are
several centuries older. It is sometimes thought to be of the
third century. I still incline to date it about 170. It is written
in Latin. Some have regarded it as a translation from the
Greek. Should it have been written at Rome at the date
named, it would presumably have been written in Greek, for
Greek continued to be the Christian literary language at Rome
until well into the third century. But this argument is not of
great weight, in so far as we do not know what the extent of the
book or the essay was to which the fragment belonged. Caius

9

I30 THE CANON

and Papias and Hegesippus have been named by different
scholars as the probable authors. We have no clue whatever to
the name of the writer, and as little to the character of the book
from which it was drawn. It may have been an apologetical
book. In this fragment, were it complete, we should have the
earliest known list of the books of the New Testament, although
we do not find this designation in it. We cannot doubt that
the full copy contained the books of the Old Testament, of
which, as we have already seen, Melito had drawn up a list.

The beginning of the list of the books of the New Testament
is lost. It is, however, to be presupposed that the Gospel
according to Matthew was named first, and that the first of the
eighty-five lines preserved refers to Mark. The mutilated
sentence probably said that Mark gave the account of tradition
which Peter related to him and then, referring to the presence
of Mark after the crucifixion, said that, nevertheless, Mark put
down for himself the narrative of the occurrences which he
himself saw as an eye-witness. It should not, it seems to me,
be thought that Mark, who lived at Jerusalem, had positively
not seen Jesus before the crucifixion. He was certainly a young
man, perhaps very young, and his merely seeing Jesus and
hearing Him speak in passing would not be a thing of which the
least notice would have been taken at that time. There were
many men of mature age who had had much intercourse with
Jesus. It did not in the least lie in the habit of the time and
the land to ask around exactly and to chronicle carefully the
name of every child that had been in the presence of Jesus.
That there were four Gospels, and only four, is clear then when
we find in the second line that Luke is given as the third. And
there is not a shadow of a reason for thinking that the first
and second were anything but Matthew and Mark. Luke is
designated as a physician, and then described as one who after
the ascension was attached to Paul as a student of the law. That
does not mean that Luke gave up medicine and turned law
student under Paul, as Paul had studied under Gamaliel. It
points to the need that Luke as a heathen by birth had to take
up the study of the Old Testament. The fragment seems to
allude to the fact, which every one feels, that Luke was more
independent as an author than Mark was. It agrees that he did
not see the Lord in the flesh. It adds, however, that he wrote

THE AGE OF IREN^US— MURATORIAN FRAGMENT 131

in his own name and as well as he could follow the events, and
that he began with the birth of John.

The account of the way in which John came to write his
Gospel is interesting. The fellow-disciples of John and his
bishops — one might think of the bishops in Asia near Ephesus
— appear as having urged him to write a Gospel. John replied
to them : " Fast with me three days from to-day on, and let us
tell each other whatever may be revealed to each one. That
same night it was revealed to Andrew the apostle that John
should write everything in his own name, and that they all
should look his work through." That is a pretty story, but is
in all probability a late invention. Then the author tells us that
though the Gospels have each an own principle, as going forth
from different authors, they nevertheless present no differences
for faith, since they all proceed from the one chief spirit, relating
the birth, the passion, the resurrection, the conversation with
His disciples, and His double coming, the first time in humility
despised, which is past, the second time glorious in royal power,
which is to come. Marcion rejected all the Gospels but Luke,
and attested thereby the four of the Church. Tatian witnessed
to the four in his Harmony. And this Muratorian fragment has
the four Gospels. They have been together for years before we
have happened to receive these glimpses of the state of the case.
They probably were brought together very soon after, it may be
immediately after, the writing of the Gospel according to John.

The author of the fragment continues by observing that it is
then not strange that " John gives the details so firmly also in his
Epistle, saying : What we ourselves have seen with our eyes and
heard with our ears and touched with our hands, these things we
have written to you. For he thus declares himself to be not only
a seer but also a hearer, and also a writer of all the wonderful
things of the Lord in order." In these words we have, then, an
early instance of the way in which the First Epistle of John was
closely bound to the Gospel in tradition. The Second and the
Third Epistles may very well have still been lying quietly in the
hands of the private persons who first received them, at the time
at which the custom of joining the First Epistle to the Gospel was
started. Next follows the book of Acts, which the author of the
fragment, without the least propriety but in accordance with
the carelessness of early times and in accordance with other

132 THE CANON

Christians, calls the Acts of all the Apostles. He says that they
are written in one book. How many books would the acts of
all of the apostles have filled? How much there must have
been to tell about Peter and about John ! Here the author
thinks that Luke had personal knowledge of the details. He
agrees that Luke omits Peter's death and Paul's journey to
Spain, and we may conjecture that it is because he was not
present at either event. As for Paul's Epistles, they themselves
declare to those who wish to know it from what place and for
what reason they were written : " First of all to the Corinthians
forbidding the heresy of schism, then second to the Galatians
about circumcision, but to the Romans he wrote more at length,
declaring the sequence of the Scriptures, and that their head
and chief is Christ. About these things we must say more.
Inasmuch as the blessed Apostle Paul, following the order of his
predecessor John, writes by name only to seven Churches in the
following order : to the Corinthians first, to the Ephesians
second, to the Philippians third, to the Colossians fourth, to
the Galatians fifth, to the Thessalonians sixth, to the Romans
seventh. But to the Corinthians and Thessalonians for reproof
he writes a second time. Nevertheless it is made known that
the one Church is diffused through the whole round of the earth.
And John, although he writes in the Revelation to seven Churches,
notwithstanding speaks to all. But one to Philemon and one
to Titus and two to Timothy for love and affection. Yet they
are sacred to the catholic Church in the regulation of Church
discipline." The way in which that remark is added, looks
almost as if the author had in mind some people who did not
accept or like these Epistles to the separate persons.

Then the fragment alludes to two Epistles that are not among
ours : " There is also an Epistle to the Laodiceans, another to the
Alexandrians forged in Paul's name for the heresy of Marcion,
and many others which cannot be received in the catholic
Church, for it is not fitting to mingle gall with honey. The
Epistle of Jude and two with the name of John are held in
honour in the catholic Church, and Wisdom written by the
friends of Solomon to his honour." The way in which these
two small Epistles of John are named seems odd. The author
alludes to them almost hesitatingly. Or is it only because they
are so very short ? Two Revelations are known to this writer,

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH 133

but the second is of questioned acceptance : " The Revelation
of John and of Peter only we acknowledge, which (I think this
applies only to Peter's Revelation) some of us do not think
should be read in church."

At this last sentence our thoughts must turn back to the
discussion of the reading in church, and the words that follow
will bear upon the same point. They refer to that book of
Hermas of which we spoke above : " The Pastor, however,
Hermas wrote lately in our day in the city of Rome, his brother
Pius the bishop being seated in the chair of the Roman Church.
And therefore it is fitting that it be read. But to the end of
time it cannot be read publicly in the church before the people
either among the finished number of the prophets or among
the apostles." There we have a clear distinction, I think, be-
tween the books that are : Man to Men, and those that are :
God to Men. The fragment closes with references to heretical
books. The names are partly so much corrupted that we
cannot tell just what they are : " But of Arsinous or Valentinus
or Miltiades we receive nothing at all. Who also wrote a new
book of Psalms for Marcion, along with Basilides, Assianos the
founder of the Cataphrygians." That is a rich fragment in spite
of all its defects. We have the four Gospels, Acts, the Epistles
of Paul, the Epistles of John, Jude, the Revelation. So far as
the fragment goes, it brings neither James nor the Epistles of
Peter nor Hebrews. Of course, in the case of a copyist who
was so extremely careless, there remains the possibility that in
some place a line or several lines have been omitted. These
Epistles are, however, Epistles that would be likely at first to be
read more in the East than in the West. But we "have seen that
the Epistle to the Hebrews was known at Rome as early as
about 95. There may have been some special reason for its
omission in this fragment. Perhaps the author of the fragment
thought, as Tertullian did, that Hebrews was written by
Barnabas, and he may have not been inclined to put it into
the list on that account.

We have thus far in this period touched Palestine, Syria, and
Assyria, and ever again Rome. Now we must turn to Corinth,
and to the Bishop Dionysius of that city. Dionysius was in
one respect like the Apostle Paul and like Ignatius, namely, in
writing letters to the Churches. He wrote to the Christians of

134 THE CANON

the Churches, not to the bishops. He was probably bishop at
the time of Justin's martyrdom, perhaps in the year 165, and it
is likely that he died before 198. He was perhaps the successor
of Primus whom Hegesippus mentions. He must have been a
man of great note, since the brethren demanded that he write to
them. We gain from the few words about him and from his pen,
that Eusebius (H. E. 4. 23) has preserved for us, quite a picture of
the Churches of his day in his neighbourhood. He names several
bishops, Palmas in Pontus, Philip in Crete, Pinytus in Crete,
Soter at Rome, Puplius and his successor Quadratus at Athens.
We know of seven of his letters : to the Lacedaemonians, to the
Athenians, to the Nicomedians, to the Gortynians, to the
Amastrians, to the Cnossians (Cnossos was a little east of Candia
on the island of Crete ; its position was settled by Arthur
John Evans and his friends in 1900), and to the Romans.
Eusebius gives a short characteristic description of his letters,
which Eusebius calls " catholic letters to the Churches," as if he
thought of the Catholic Epistles in the New Testament. He
calls the letter to the Lacedaemonians a catechetical letter of
orthodoxy, and a reminder of peace and unity. The letter to
the Athenians is an awakening letter for faith and for the
manner of life taught in the Gospel, and he reproves those who
forget that life, and points to the example of their Bishop
Puplius who became a martyr in the persecutions then. He
also praises the zeal and chronicles the success of the Bishop
Quadratus who followed Puplius. Thereat he refers to Dionysius
the Areopagite led to the faith by Paul, and as the first one
taking the oversight of the parish at Athens. The letter to
Nicomedia was written against the heresy of Marcion, and stands
fast in the canon of the truth. Writing to the Church living in
this foreign world, "parishing," at Gortyna and to the rest of the
Churches on Crete, he praises the Bishop Philip, and tells him to
guard against heresy. In the letter to Amastris and the rest in
Pontus, written at the request of Bacchylides and Elpistos, he
"adds explanations of divine scripture." It would be interesting
for us to have these comments of such a high age. The subjects
touched upon in this letter show how wide a range a bishop
then dared to take in writing to the Christians under another
bishop. " He exhorts them at length about marriage and
purity," — we might almost think he were passing on to Amastris

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH 1 35

the good thoughts that Paul had written to his own Church, —
"and he tells them to receive again those who return again
from any fall, whether a sin in general or whether a heretical
error."

The letter to the Cnossians on Crete and to their Bishop
Pinytus displays still more plainly the fact that Dionysius, we
might almost say, takes the place of a pope or of a patriarch
towards these bishops and their sees. Precisely this letter gives
us a New Testament background, for in it "he begs Pinytus
the bishop of the parish not to place upon the brethren a heavy
burden of necessity concerning purity, but to consider the
weakness of the many." This doubtless points to a wish on the
part of Pinytus to bring into use ascetic rules. " In replying to
which Pinytus admires and accepts what Dionysius says, but
begs him in return some time to impart firmer food, nourishing
the people under him in the future with more complete letters,
so that they may not by spending their time with milk-like words
in the end discover that they had grown old in an infant method
of life." We could not wish for any more practical portrayal of
the application of Paul's word to Church questions. "Further,"
says Eusebius, " we have a letter of Dionysius also addressed to
the Romans." " He writes as follows : For from the beginning
this is your habit to bestow kindness in various ways upon all
the brethren, and to send provisions for the journey," — remember
that the Christians are all living in this foreign land, are all
pilgrims to the heavenly home, and hence need the money or
other provision for the way, — "here refreshing the poverty of the
needy, and by the money for the journey which you have sent
from the beginning affording support to the brethren in the
mines, ye Romans thus preserving the custom of the Romans
handed down from the fathers, which your blessed Bishop Soter
not only kept up but also increased, not only bestowing the
abundance distributed to the saints, but also like a warmly-loving
father comforting the desponding brethren like children with
blessed words." That was Dionysius.

Eusebius adds for our special benefit : " In this very letter he
also makes mention of the letter of Clement to the Corinthians,
bringing to view that the reading of it before the Church was
done from old times by an ancient custom." He says then :
"To-day then we passed the Lord's day a holy day, in which we

136 THE CANON

read your letter, which we ever hold and keep in mind by reading
it, as also the one formerly written to us by Clement." The point
of these things for the canon, lies first of all in the active inter-
course between the Churches. We have seen that Rome must
have long since had the body of our New Testament books.
Now we see this same Rome sending its riches to the poor in
various Churches, and to the Christians working as prisoners in
mines and quarries. And, moreover, Soter sends not only money,
but also comforting words. It seems to me that no rational
person will be inclined to think that these Churches and these
scattered Christian prisoners were totally ignorant of the New
Testament books, the fulfilling of the precepts in which was
bringing them these bountiful provisions for the hard places in
their earthly journey. And in the reading of Soter's letter and of
the letter of Clement we have examples of the way in which the
division Man to Man in the service was partly filled up. It will
remain to be seen later whether we should in the case of the
letter of Clement suppose that it was read at Corinth from the
point of view of God to Man. For the moment it will certainly
be granted that the mention of it in connection with the letter of
Soter does not point to that. Further is to be observed that the
reading of the books of the New Testament in Corinth as in
Rome is to be presupposed although it is not mentioned here.
This is not a thoughtless assumption. It is the only conception
of the situation that is scientifically possible.

Dionysius has not yet exhausted his stores for us. He gives
us a glimpse of the way in which some Christians treated letters
at that day. Eusebius writes : " And the same [Dionysius] speaks
as follows of his letters as being treacherously treated : For when
the brethren asked it of me that I should write letters, I wrote
them. And these the apostles of the devil have mingled with
tares, taking some things out and putting some things in. For
whom the Woe is waiting. It is then not strange if some have
laid their hands upon the work of treating the writings about
the Lord treacherously, seeing that they have taken such counsel
against letters that are not such as those are." Last of all,
Eusebius tells that Dionysius wrote a letter to a most faithful
sister Chrysophora, " in which, writing to her of the things that
belong to her duty, he imparts also to her logical food," food of
the word we may say, or reasonable food. The expression recalls

THE AGE OF IRENvEUS— DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH 1 37

Paul's words in Romans, "your reasonable service," or Peter's
words, "the reasonable guileless milk." Dionysius has carried
us to Asia Minor on the east and to Rome on the west, and has
set the Church before us in constant intercourse between its parts.
His letters themselves display a kind of interchange between
Churches that we should not look for to-day in circles in which
bishops rule. The Bishop of Rhode Island of the Protestant
Episcopal Church would scarcely like it if the Bishop of Illinois
should take occasion to write to his diocese about their duties.
The Bishop of Durham would certainly not be pleased if the
Bishop of Lincoln should be asked to write and should write to
his diocesans about marriage and chastity. The explanation lies
partly in the simple conditions of that day, in the comparatively
undeveloped notion of the duties and rights of bishops, — would
that the notion had remained undeveloped, — partly in the high
position of Corinth as a city in which Paul had lived and to
which he had sent two letters, and partly without doubt in a
certain gracious fatherly disposition on the part of Dionysius
himself, possibly coupled at the close with the glory, the halo of
a patriarchal age on the part of Dionysius that made bishops and
people eager to bask in the light that reflected alike from a remote
past of Christian tradition and from a near future when he should
stand before the throne of God. Dionysius' distinction between
writings about the Lord — the Greek phrase is really " Lordly
writings," the word Lord meaning here surely Jesus — and his
own letters " that are not such," emphasises for us the difference
alluded to between the writings which belong in the service to
the part God to Man and those which belong to the part Man
to Man. Probably Dionysius has at first in view the Gospels as
especially pertaining to the Lord. Inasmuch, however, as he is
speaking of his own letters, it is altogether possible, and I think
it probable that he also thinks of the Epistles of the Apostles as
belonging to these writings respecting the Lord.

At the beginning of the last quarter of the second century,
probably from the year 177, we have a trifling yet not unwelcome
testimony to Matthew, and John, and Romans, and First
Corinthians, and Galatians, from the pen of Athenagoras an
Athenian philosopher, who wrote an Apology, addressed to
Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, and soon after that an essay
on the Resurrection from the dead.

138 THE CANON

Antioch, which gave us Ignatius, offers us here Theophilus,
who was bishop there somewhere about the years 181 to 190.
He wrote three books to Autolycus which are preserved, and
among many other, lost, books was a Harmony of the Gospels
and a commentary on the Harmony. Eusebius declares that
Theophilus quotes the book of Revelation in his book against
the heretic Hermogenes. Describing Theophilus, Eusebius
observes how very corrupt heresy then was, and how the shepherds
of the Church warded the heretics off like wild beasts from the
sheep of Christ : " On the one hand with warnings and admo-
nitions to the brethren, and on the other hand by placing them
naked and unclothed before them, not only face to face with
unwritten discussions and refutations, but now also by means
of written reminders setting straight forth their opinions with
the most exact proofs." Eusebius adds that Theophilus wrote a
good book against Marcion which was then still preserved. The
three books written by Theophilus to his friend Autolycus, a
heathen, — and Theophilus was himself by birth a heathen, — are
not strictly connected with each other, having been written, the
first as an account of a discussion with Autolycus, the second at
the request of Autolycus, and the third as a thought of
Theophilus'.

In the closing chapter of the first book, Theophilus tells
how he himself had been converted by reading "the sacred
writings of the holy 'prophets," who had foretold the future.
Like Justin and the earlier Aristobulus and Philo, he de-
clares that the heathen writers drew their wisdom from the
prophets. In the second book he calls the prophets "spirit-
bearers of the Holy Spirit " inspired and made wise by God, and
quotes the Old Testament as : " teaches us the Holy Spirit by
the prophets," — "teaches the divine scripture," — "the divine
scripture," — " the divine Scriptures." In one passage he writes :
" Whence the holy Scriptures and all the spirit-bearers teach us,
of whom John says : In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, showing that at first God only was and in
Him the WTord." Then he says : " And God was the Word : all
things were made by Him ; and without Him nothing was made."
This passage is said not to imply the equal value of the books of
the New Testament with those of the Old Testament. I insist
upon it that so far as these words of Theophilus have any mean-

THE AGE OF IREN.FUS— THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH 1 39

ing at all, they place John the evangelist and his words in a
distinctly exceptional position. They call John one of the
"spirit-bearers," and that is precisely the designation which, as
we saw a moment ago, Theophilus applied to the prophets who
were the writers of the divine Scriptures of the Old Testament.
When, then, the holy Scriptures and all the spirit-bearers are
mentioned together and John is declared to be one of them, the
purpose of this juxtaposition is not to say that John is less than
the prophets, but to put him on a par with the prophets. The
same thing if not more appears from the contents of the quotation
from John. What is quoted is not a saying of Jesus, but the
saying of the evangelist. And this evangelical spirit-bearer does
not here make some general indifferent remark such as that
idolatry or whoredom or what not is a sin. On the contrary,
this Gospel writer gives the fundamental statement touching God
and the Word : " In the beginning was God, and the Word
was with God." It seems to me that no observation upon the
difference made between a prophet and a spirit-bearer can in any
way overbalance the use here made and made by name touching
John. It is, besides, the first time that John is thus named as the
evangelist. Theophilus also knows very well indeed the Epistles
of Paul and First Peter. In the third book, after dealing with
the prophets, he says (3. 12) : " Moreover also as to righteousness
of which the law speaks, we find that similar things are con-
tained in the [writings] of the prophets and of the Gospels," — the
word " Gospels " may very well be an error for " evangelists," —
" because all the spirit-bearers have made their utterances with
the one spirit of God." He then quotes the Gospels repeatedly ;
for example (3. 13) : "And the gospel voice teaches in the strongest
manner about chastity, saying " — not to look at a woman with
evil thought, and not to put away a wife. Then he writes (3. 14) :
" And those doing what is good it [the Gospel] teaches not to
boast, that they may not be men-pleasers. For let not your left
hand, it says, know what your right hand does. Moreover also
about the being subject to powers and authorities and praying
for them, the divine word commands us that we should lead a
calm and quiet life, and teaches to render to all, all things j to
whom honour, honour ; to whom fear, fear ; to whom taxes, taxes :
to owe no man anything, save only to love all."

A great deal too much has been made of the fact that Theo-

140 THE CANON

philus in writing these three books brings in comparison so little
from the New Testament and so much from the Old Testament.
The fact is that Theophilus in the first place quotes extraordinarily
often all manner of heathen books, not, of course, as Scripture,
high as he rates the Sibyl. And then he quotes a great deal
from the Old Testament precisely because Autolycus wishes to be
informed about God and about man from an Old Testament point
of view. He quotes, for example, at one breath about three pages
from the first chapter of Genesis, and a little later he brings
another three pages. For the larger part of the three books only
the Old Testament gave him the massive sentences about God
that he wanted. Furthermore, it has been said that he quotes
the New Testament very freely ; but so he does also the Old
Testament when he does not need to get down a roll and write
off a long paragraph. For example, Isaiah writes (4022) : " He
that sets up as a chamber the heaven and stretches [it] out like a
tent to inhabit." Theophilus introduces this most formally, but
writes (2. 13) : " God this one (This God [I wished to represent the
Greek words]), the one making the heaven like a chamber^ and
stretching [it] out like a tent to be lived in."

As to the use of the Old Testament, even in the third book
it is to be urged that one main point of that third book, as the
first chapter shows, is the refutation of the opinion of Autolycus
that the books of the Christians are new. It seems to me to
follow directly from this opinion of Autolycus, that he had heard
of altogether new Scriptures of the Christians. Indeed the weight
of this statement goes rather to show that these newer books were
the ones upon which the Christians laid the greatest stress. Of
course, then, in opposing such views Theophilus must quote more
Old Testament than New Testament, and must emphasise the
value of those old books from which he deduces the wisdom of
the heathen poets and philosophers. And there he cites Moses
and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, whose very names produce
an atmosphere of antiquity and of mystery. The words given
above as the strong command of the Gospel voice about chastity
are the intensifying of a word from Solomon. But that does not
in the least signify that Theophilus did not account the Gospel
as equal to Solomon. It is only a part of Theophilus' plan to
give first those old writings which he is straining every nerve to
commend as ancient and reverend to his heathen friend.

THE AGE OF IREN.EUS— THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH 141

The very way in which he nevertheless represents the Gospel
as giving a more commanding statement as to chastity, permits
us to see that he himself is more inclined to place the Gospels
above than below the Old Testament Scriptures. And then we
are told that Theophilus does not account Paul's writings of high
value, or as equal to those of the Old Testament. Now it is not
well to be all too wise about shades of difference. I confess that
I do not feel sure that Theophilus regarded the prophets as
exactly equal to the law. In the same way it must be conceded
that Theophilus may have thought that the letters of Paul were
not quite equal to the words of Jesus. But a concession of this
kind is of no extraordinary importance. For, if I am not
mistaken, in spite of all doctrines of the equality of the holiness
of the books of the New Testament, only very few Christians in
this twentieth century would fail to feel that a statement backed
by direct words of Jesus had a higher authority than one merely
confirmed by an Epistle of Paul or any other apostle. When,
however, we find that Theophilus quotes Old Testament passages
with varying degrees of freedom and with indefinitely varying
introductory words, we must not ask too much for the New
Testament words. Look, for example, at the following series.
Theophilus (3. 14) quotes Isaiah, and introduces the words by:
" Isaiah the prophet said." Directly after the verse from Isaiah
he quotes Matthew, using the introduction : " And the Gospel :
Love ye, it saith," and so on. He brings here two or three
passages from Matthew together. And then he passes to the
Epistle to Titus in this manner : " And further also about the
being subject to powers and authorities and praying for them,
the divine word commands us that we should live a calm and
quiet life. And teaches to render to all, all things " ; see above.
The prophet said, the Gospel saith, it says (used in one of the
quotations from Matthew), the divine word commands us. That
series shows to my mind no special decline in its reverence for
Paul when it says of his words : " the divine word commands
us." His words are words of the divine word, and they command
us.

It seems to me that that places Paul's words just as high
as the words of Isaiah. We must, however, remember that
Theophilus' main point against his heathen friend is the age of
the writings. Shortly after the above quotation he writes (3. 16) :

142 THE CANON

" But I wish to show thee now more accurately, God granting,
the things which pertain to the times, so that thou mayest
understand that our word is neither new nor mythical, but older
and more true than all the poets and writers, of those writing in
uncertainty." Of necessity, then, he must go back to Moses and
the prophets as predecessors of Homer and Plato and the rest of
the heathen poets and philosophers. And this third book then
continues to the close the comparison of Jewish and heathen
history. There is to my mind not the shadow of a doubt that
Theophilus had the bulk of our New Testament books, and that
he regarded them in general as all of them equal in authority to
the books of the Old Testament.

From Antioch and the East we must now pass far over to the
West, to Gaul, and visit the Churches of Vienne and of Lyons.
Vienne is the place to which Herod was sent as an exile with
Herodias after the murder of John the Baptist. Josephus the
Jewish historian says so. It lies thirty-one kilometres to the
south of Lyons, and contains still a temple of Augustus and
Livia. Lyons itself, where Augustus resided several years, is
to-day the third city of France. Eusebius opens the fifth book
of his Church History by a brilliant paragraph upon the martyrs
who suffered under Antoninus Verus, that is to say, Marcus
Aurelius, and that in the seventeenth year of his reign, about
the year 178-179. He relates that these persecutions were
stirred up by the populace in the cities here and there through
the world ; and he offers to give as a specimen the story of those
martyred in one special country, because he is so fortunate as to
have a written account of their sufferings, which were worthy of
imperishable remembrance, being not victories won by blood
and tens of thousands of murders of children, but most peaceful
wars for peace of the soul, not even for the native country, but
for the truth and for godliness. And then he points to Gaul
and to those cities in the valley of the Rhone.

The document to which he refers is a letter of the two Churches
of Vienne and Lyons. The very address of this letter reminds us
again of the close union between the Churches in distant lands,
for it is addressed to the Churches in Asia and Phrygia. It was
less strange that the same Churches also sent at the same time
a letter to Rome, borne by Irenaeus, to whom we have already
referred, who was then a presbyter in the Church at Lyons.

THE AGE OF IREN.EUS— VIENNE AND LYONS 143

They began the former letter thus : " The servants of God
dwelling in this foreign world at Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to
the brethren in Asia and Phrygia who have the same faith and
hope of redemption as we have, peace and grace and glory from
God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord." Declaring that
they could not duly describe nor writing contain an exact
account of all they had suffered, they wrote : " But the grace
of God led the fray against them and strengthened the weak,
and set up firm pillars able by their patience to draw upon
themselves the whole impetus of the evil one, who also met
him together, standing all kinds of contumely and punishment,
who also thinking the many [ills] were but few hurried on to
Christ, showing, in fact, that the sufferings of the present time
are not worthy to be compared to the glory which is going to
be revealed to us." It is clear that they knew the eighth
chapter of Romans (ver. 18). And they told of the first valiant
young martyr who laid down his life for the defence of the
brethren : " For he was and he is a genuine disciple of Christ,
following the Lamb wherever He may go." They therefore were
at home in the fourteenth chapter of the Revelation. Ten, alas !
yielded to the wiles of the evil one.

Some of their heathen servants came out and denounced
them as cannibals and as committing other horrible crimes, and
then the people attacked them still more furiously : " And that
was fulfilled which our Lord said : That the time will come in
which every one slaying you will think he is offering a service
to God." The sixteenth chapter of John was therefore in their
hands. One of the men tortured was Attalos, who was from
Pergamon ; and a woman, Blandina, endured torture from early
morn until the evening, so that her persecutors confessed them-
selves conquered, for they did not know what they could do
more to her ; and they were amazed that she still lived, with her
whole body rent and open. But she still held out, and she cried :
"lama Christian, and no evil deed is done among us." Sanctus,
who was tortured in the extreme, then took up a single answer ;
and whether they asked his name, or his race, or his native
country, or whether he was bond or free, replied to all questions
by saying in Latin the words : "lama Christian." The governor
was furious, and they put fiery plates of brass upon the tenderest
spots in his body. It burned his flesh, but he remained firm :

144 THE CANON

" Cooled and strengthened by the heavenly spring of the water
of life going forth from the body of Christ." We see how the
Revelation and John are combined in that expression.

Potheinos the bishop, who was over ninety years of age, was
brought before the governor, who asked him who was the God
of the Christians. After all the questions and answers that the
governor had put and heard in these days, Potheinos regarded
this question as mere trifling, and he replied to the governor:
11 If you were worthy, you would know." And then the crowd hit
and kicked and threw things at the old man, and he was carried
away almost lifeless to the prison, where he died in two days.
The beasts were let loose upon them in the amphitheatre, but in
vain. The greater part of those who had from fear renounced
Christianity, returned to a joyful martyrdom. One of the most
valiant martyrs was Alexander, a physician from Phrygia, who
had been many years in Gaul, another witness for the union of
West and East. When they put Attalus on the heated iron chair,
he cried out to the crowd in Latin : " This that you are doing is
eating men. We do not eat men, nor do we do anything else
that is bad." The firmness of the martyrs only infuriated the
governor and the mob, and the Church wrote of them in the
words of Daniel and of Revelation : " That the scripture should
be fulfilled : Let the lawless one be lawless still, and let the
just one be justified still." Knowing of the doctrine of the
resurrection, the heathen watched the corpses of the martyrs
night and day, and allowed no Christian to hold a burial service
over them or to take them away for burial. After six days they
threw what was not eaten by the dogs or burned up by fire into
the Rhone. And they cried in an unconscious imitation of the
spectators around the cross of Jesus : " Now let us see whether
they will rise again, and whether their God is able to help them,
and to draw them out of our hands."

The letter called the Christians who had been tortured not
once or twice only but often, and who were full of burns and
sores and wounds, and who nevertheless neither called themselves
martyrs nor wished the others to call them martyrs, — the letter
called them zealous followers and imitators of Christ, " who," —
in the words of the second chapter of Philippians, — " being in
the form of God, did not think that the being equal to God was
a thing that He should seize." We see in that the way in which

THE AGE OF IRENiEUS— VIENNE AND LYONS 145

they understood that passage, and, of course, we see that they
knew well that Epistle. A little after that they used a phrase
from First Peter, saying of the martyrs that " they humbled them-
selves under the mighty hand [of God]." And then they allude
to the book of Acts : " And they prayed for those who brought
these fearful things upon them, like Stephen the perfect martyr :
Put not this sin upon them." And they add beautifully: "But
if he prayed for the people who stoned him, how much more for
the brethren." That letter warmed and cheered and spurred on
to like deeds many a Christian heart in those days. For us it is
a monument of the unity of the Church, and a witness to the use
of books of the New Testament.

No one will undertake to deny that Potheinos, dying as bishop
in 178 at more than ninety years of age, stretched back with his
memory to the end of the first century, seeing that he must have
been born before the year 88. We know of Potheinos the bishop,
over ninety years old, and of Polycarp, who was martyred as
bishop, eighty-six years old, in the year 155. How many other
bishops and Christians wove the long years with long bands in
one, whose names we do not know, because they were not
martyrs, or because the story of their martyrdom has not reached
us ! Who that has any appreciation of historic sequence and of
historic contemporaneity can speak of the early Christian Church
as if it were a disjointed, ill-connected series of little societies that
knew little of each other and less of the past, and were a ready
prey for every and even the most unskilful forger of Scriptures ?

It was about this time apparently, somewhere about the
year 178, that a heathen named Celsus wrote a book against
Christianity and called it The True Word. In it he first pro-
duces a Jew who refutes the externals of Jesus' life. Then
he attacks it from the general point of view of a heathen
philosopher, and endeavours to refute it in detail by arguments
drawn from the history of philosophy; and then he tries to
persuade the Christians to turn heathen. One thing is plain,
and that is that he in general uses for the purpose of refuting
them precisely our New Testament books in the main. He
regards them as for Christians authoritative. At the close of
his first part, in which a Jew has been bearing hard against
Christianity, he shows clearly his position, his attitude towards
the Scriptures. He writes : " Thus much, then, for you from
10

146 THE CANON

your own writings, on the basis of which we need no other
witness, for they refute themselves." He was of the opinion
that the different Gospels arose from a different conception of
the facts which led different people to change the one original
Gospel into the forms of the four Gospels. He scourges the
inclination of Christians to divide up into sects seeking novel
opinions, and declares that if all other people came to desire to
be Christians, the Christians would not care to be Christians
any longer. He says that at the beginning there were only a
few of them, and these were of one mind ; but that after they had
increased and were spread abroad in great numbers, they divided
and separated themselves from each other, and each wished to
have his own party. He says that in the end they only have the
name Christian in common, but in reality hardly that. He
presses hard upon the belief of the Christians: "All this great
effect is made by faith, which is determined in advance for
something or other. And so the faith, which has taken possession
of their souls, procures for the Christians the great attachment to
Jesus, so that they account Him, who came from a mortal body,
for God, and suppose they are doing something holy in thinking
this." Celsus' book, so far as we can judge of it from the
plentiful quotations which Origen gives in refuting it, was simply
full of the New Testament, of the New Testament in general as
we have it in our hands. What he finds strange, stupid, base,
that is what we read in the New Testament. He is also well
acquainted with the history of the Christians, and with the way in
which certain heretics treated the Gospels and Epistles.

We have named the period which is now occupying our
thoughts, the age of Irenaeus. Irenaeus is another of the living
bonds between the East and the West, between Smyrna, we may
say in general Asia Minor, and Lyons or Gaul. It is to be.
agreed that we do not know positively that he was born and
grew up in Asia Minor. He himself did not think it worth
while to make any precise statements upon this subject. I
think, however, that his reference to Smyrna and to Polycarp
and to Florinus, a friend or at least an acquaintance of his
boyhood, all point to a stay of some years in Smyrna; and
nothing seems to speak against his having been born there, save
the tradition, almost isolated tradition, that he was by birth a
Syrian. We know of nothing that in any way seems to favour

THE AGE OF IREN^US— IREN^EUS 1 47

his coming originally from Syria. In one special way there
would be no obstacle to Syrian birth, if, namely, like Tatian, he
should have been brought up in Syria as a Greek. However, I
regard it as most likely that he was born and lived through his
boyhood at least in Asia Minor, and probably in or near Smyrna.
Thus far we can only guess at the date of his birth. He was
probably born between the years 135 and 142.

As a boy he saw Polycarp at Smyrna, and he appears to have
been younger than Florinus whom he also saw, also during his own
boyhood, at Smyrna and in the presence of Polycarp. Irenaeus
speaks in no wise as if he had been a pupil of Polycarp's, but
only as if he remembered seeing the distinguished old man as
any boy stands and admires an old arid reverend bishop. It is
humanly speaking a mere accident that furnishes us with that
minute touching Polycarp. Florinus, who was a presbyter in the
Church at Rome, became a heretic, took up the Valentinian
Gnosticism while Victor was bishop, and therefore after 189 or
190. And Irenaeus, who has been finding that Florinus' heretical
books are spreading that heresy in Gaul, not only writes to
Victor and begs him to suppress Florinus and his writings, but
also writes to Florinus himself, and begins as a way of catching
at a favourable point in Florinus' feelings by recalling his having
in boyhood seen Florinus playing a distinguished part in the
imperial chambers and before Polycarp. Whether the allusions
to royalty imply a visit of an emperor or not, is not so clear as to
make that point valuable for dating the meeting of Irenaeus with
Florinus. Irenaeus says the most flattering thing he can to
Florinus, and gives us at the same time a glimpse of his own
early life. He tells that he remembers just where and how
Polycarp sat and preached to the multitude, and how he told of
his intercourse with John and with others who had seen the
Lord, and of some things he had heard from them about the
Lord and about His miracles and teaching, and how, having
received [it] from those who themselves had seen the life of the
Word, Polycarp announced all things in unison with the Scriptures.
Here we see the combination of the two elements, of the tradition
by word of mouth and of the written books. It is fitting that
Irenaeus should lay stress upon this point, for it is especially
with him that we begin to feel as if we had a certain literary
basis for Christian life and Christian doctrine.

148 THE CANON

He continues the appeal to Florinus (Eusebius, H. E. 5. 20) :
" And these things then by the grace of God that was granted
to me I heard eagerly, storing them up for memory not on
paper but in my heart, and I do ever by the grace of God
chew the cud of them in their genuineness." And then he
applies this all to his friend : " And I am able to bear witness
before God that if that blessed and apostolic presbyter had
heard some such thing as this [Florinus' heresy], crying out
and stopping his ears and saying his accustomed phrase : ' O
good God, until what times hast Thou preserved me, that I
undergo these things,' he would also have fled from the place
sitting or standing in which he had heard these words." And
he confirms this his verbal tradition by adding the reference to
Polycarp's letters : "And this can be made plain from his letters
which he sent either to the neighbouring Churches strengthening
them, or to some of the brethren admonishing them and urging
them on." We thus have here the whole round of our field :
(1) the teaching of the Lord ; (2) the words of those who saw and
heard the Lord ; (3) the living words of Polycarp preaching to
the people what he heard from those who saw the Lord; (4)
Irenaeus' account of the preaching of Polycarp as agreeing with
the Scriptures ; (5) and at last Polycarp's letters as conveying
the same things as his preaching. The Scriptures play in this
an important part. The value of the testimony from the eye-
witnesses is undisputed, and this testimony is brought to bear to
confirm the sacred books of the Church.

Irenaeus was then no stranger to the Church at Rome, for
he had about ten years before as a presbyter of the Church
at Lyons carried the letter of that Church and of the Church
at Vienne about the persecutions to the Church at Rome, and
his Church gave him a high and warm recommendation to the
Church in the imperial city. The two Churches wrote to
Eleutheros the bishop at Rome (Eusebius, H. E. 5. 4) :
" We have encouraged our brother and partaker [in our cares]
Irenaeus to bear this letter to thee, and we beg thee to be kind
to him as being zealous for the covenant of Christ." It is
interesting to observe that Irenaeus in his effort to draw Florinus
back to the Church also wrote to him a treatise on the Eight,
the Ogdoas of Florinus' Valentinian system. Irenaeus' great
work was his Refutation of the Heresies in five books. Un-

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— IREN^US 149

fortunately the original is to a large extent lost, so that we are
compelled to use for much of it the Latin translation. It must
have been written between the years 181 and 189, and it may
be called our first large Christian treatise in the series of Church
writers that continues from his day to the present in an almost
unbroken series. A bishop of his day, one combining the
traditions of Asia Minor, of Rome, and of Gaul, cannot but
have had the bulk of our New Testament. He uses distinctly
the four Gospels, the book of Acts, First Peter, First John, all
the Epistles of Paul save Philemon, — how easily that could
happen not to be quoted, — and the Revelation.

Irenseus' words about the four Gospels have passed into the
literature of the Church in the closest connection with the
Gospels, for they are used in a very large number of manuscripts
as a brief preface to the Gospels. After giving through many
pages a full description of the four Gospels, he writes (3. 11. 8):
" But neither are there more Gospels in number than these, nor
does it receive fewer. Since there are four directions of the
world in which we are, and four general winds, and the Church
is dispersed through all the earth, and the pillar and confirming
of the Church is the gospel and spirit of life, it is fitting that
it should have four pillars, breathing from all sides incorruption,
and inflaming men. From which it is clear that the Word, the
maker of all things, the one sitting on the Cherubim and holding
all things together, having been revealed to men, gave us the
Gospel fourfold, but held together in one spirit. . . . For the
Cherubim are four-faced, and their faces are images of the activity
of the Son of God. For the first living being, they say, is like
a lion, characterising his practical and leading and kingly office.
And the second is like a calf [or an ox], showing forth the sacri-
ficial and priestly order. And the third having the face of a man,
denoting most clearly His presence in human form. And the
fourth like a flying eagle, making clear the gift of the Spirit flying
down to the Church. And therefore the Gospels agree with
these, in which Christ sits. For that according to John relates
His princely and effective and glorious generation, saying : In the
beginning was the Word. . . . And that, according to Luke,
[telling] what is of the priestly character, begins with Zacharias
the priest sacrificing to God. For the fatted calf is already
prepared, about to be slain for the finding again of the younger

150 THE CANON

son. And Matthew heralds His birth according to man, saying :
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of
Abraham. And : The birth of Jesus Christ was thus. Therefore
this Gospel is anthropomorphic. And Mark made his beginning
from the prophetic spirit, that comes upon men from on high,
saying : The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as is written
in Isaiah the prophet, showing the winged image of the Gospel.
And for this reason he made the message short and swiftly
running, for this is the prophetic character. . . . For the living
beings are fourfold, and the Gospel and the activity of the Lord is
fourfold. And for this reason four general covenants were given
to humanity. One of the Flood, with Noah with the sign of the
rainbow. And the second Abraham's, with the sign of circumci-
sion. And the third, the giving of the law under Moses. And
the fourth, the Gospel, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Then Irenseus goes on (3. 11. 9) to berate the empty and un-
learned and bold men " who put aside the idea " — that is to say,
the proper notion and preconception — " of the Gospel, and bring
forward either more or fewer than the above mentioned forms of
the Gospel. Some of them so that they may seem to have found
out more of the truth, the others setting aside the things arranged
by God." These words look, at the first glance, very interesting.
It seems as if we might here, say in the year 185, have a repre-
sentation of unknown apocryphal Gospels, or perhaps a description
of various Gospels that were just as good as, and in some places
quite as well accepted as our four Gospels, but that did not
survive because they had not the good fortune to be added to the
four Gospels. Whom has Irenaeus thought of? Who had less
or more Gospels ? Irenaeus goes on : " For Marcion rejecting
the whole Gospel, or to say it better, cutting himself off in fact
from the Gospel, boasts that he has a part of the Gospel." We
see at once what that means. The rejecting the whole Gospel is
simply Marcion's cutting himself off from the Church and setting
up Churches for himself. And the boasting that he has part of
the Gospel is not Marcion's, but Irenaeus' way of putting it, or is
rather a mixture of Irenaeus and of Marcion. Marcion would
not have boasted and did not boast that he had a " part " of the
Gospel. According to his conception of the case, what he had
was the Gospel and the whole Gospel. What he rejected and cut
out, that was not Gospel at all. Marcion therefore boasted that

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— IREN^US 151

he, and that he alone, had the pure and genuine Gospel, without
adulteration and corruption, in that Gospel which he had won
from the ore in the Gospel of Luke. But that was for Irenaeus
a mere butt end of a Gospel, a miserable excuse for a Gospel, and
hence he puts it as he does, that Marcion boasts that he has a
part of the Gospel. That was, then, one effort to reduce the
number of the Gospels, or we might term it, to lessen the amount
of the Gospel.

The second is of a different character: "Others, however,
in order to make the gift of the Spirit ineffective, which in
these last days by the decree of the Father is shed abroad upon
the human race, do not admit that form which is the Gospel
according to John, in which the Lord promises that He will
send the Comforter, but reject at the same time the Gospel and
the prophetic spirit. Wretched men, indeed,, who wish to be
false prophets," — again a word of Irenseus', for they regard
themselves, of course, as true and genuine prophets, — " but repel
the prophetic grace from the Church. ... We are given to under-
stand, moreover, that such men as these as little accept the
Apostle Paul. For in the Epistle which is to the Corinthians, he
spoke most diligently of prophetic gifts, and knows of men and
women prophesying in the Church. By all these things therefore,
sinning against the Spirit of God, they fall into the sin that
cannot be forgiven." Who are these people who reject the
Gospel of John ? They appear to be certain Christians whom a
later writer, Epiphanius, calls Alogians, or people who were
against the Logos, the Word. We might call them No-Worders.
Singularly enough, we know very little about them. With them
Irenaeus has exhausted his catalogue of the people who are
content with fewer than the four Gospels. The great point for us
is, that these two sets of people bring in no new Gospels.
They had our four Gospels in their hands, and they chose on the
one hand to content themselves with a mutilated Luke, and on
the other hand to be satisfied with Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
and to let John go. Marcion did have great influence, as we
have seen. These others, the rejecters of John, appear to have
had as good as no influence, for we find almost no traces of
them. They are celebrated as being about the only persons in
ancient times who were so lacking in judgment as to give up that
Gospel. We cannot, however, discover any tokens that their

152 THE CANON

notions found favour in wide circles. We are at a loss to place
them. But what does the remark about the Epistles of Paul
mean? We cannot tell. Nothing of that kind is to be found
elsewhere attached to the special rejection of John. It is
possible that the thought is simply a conclusion of Irenaeus' :
They reject the spiritual Gospel. They therefore reject spiritual
gifts. First Corinthians praises spiritual gifts. Therefore — which,
of course, would not in the least follow by any logical necessity —
these people reject the Apostle Paul.

If those two sets of people had fewer Gospels, who had more ?
Here again we are eager to learn of some new Gospel. We shall
be disappointed : " But those who are from Valentinus, being
again beyond all fear, bringing forward their own writings," —
we might almost say concoctions ; they are things that the
Valentinians have "written together," have "scraped together in
writing " for themselves, — " boast that they have more than the
Gospels themselves are. In fact, they have proceeded to such
boldness, that they call that which was written by them not very
long since the Gospel of truth, which does not agree at all with
the Gospels of the apostles, so that they cannot even have a
Gospel without blasphemy. For if that which they bring forward
is the Gospel of truth, and this is moreover unlike those (Gospels)
that have been handed down to us by the apostles, as anyone
who cares can learn, as is clear from the Scriptures themselves,
then that which is handed down from the apostles is not the
Gospel of truth." This gives us nothing new. We have an
inkling of the state of the case with the Valentinians. The
Valentinians had and used our four Gospels. They — or some
one of them — wrote a book upon the ideas of their system, and
they unfortunately took a fancy to call it a Gospel. So far as we
can see, they did not for a moment purpose to put it in the place
of any one of the Gospels or of all four Gospels. It was a totally
different thing. At the same time the use of the word Gospel
made it easy for Irenaeus to decry their action in the above way.
It would further not be at all impossible that other uninformed
people, and let us concede it, even some less informed Valen-
tinians, might have taken the title Gospel in the same sense, and
have supposed that the book was meant to be a proper Gospel.
We should not fail to observe that on the one hand this use of
this title indicates a high valuation of the name Gospel in the

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— IREN^US 1 53

circles in which Valentinus lived. Far more important, however,
is the observation, that the isolation in which this use of the
word by the Valentinians stands is really, if I mistake not, in
itself a most thorough refutation of that view of the second
century and of our Gospels, which represents the century, and
especially the former half of it, as deluged with all manner of
Gospels, some bad, some indifferent, but a large number quite
good, which Gospels then disappeared of a sudden, because the
Church had arbitrarily settled upon our present four.

Irenseus' high appreciation of scripture, and that of the New
Testament as well as of the Old Testament, shines forth in a few
sentences (4. 33, 8) which we shall understand better when we some
day find the original Greek words for the whole ; now we have
the Greek only for the first sixteen words : " True knowledge " —
Gnosis — " is the teaching of the apostles and the ancient system
of the Church through all the world, and the sign of the body of
Christ according to the successions of the bishops, to whom
they " — the apostles — " gave over the Church which is in each
single place, [and] the fullest use of the Scriptures which have
reached us in [careful] custody without corruption, consenting
neither to addition nor to subtraction, and the text " — reading —
" without corruption, and the legitimate and diligent explanation
according to the Scriptures both without peril and without
blasphemy, and the chief duty of love, which is more precious
than knowledge, more glorious, moreover, than prophecy, and
supereminently above all the rest of the graces." Here we
behold as one of the main points of right Christian knowledge
the most extended use of the Scriptures. These Scriptures, he
says, have been handed down to us in watchful care "without
fiction." I have written above " corruption " as a general term.
I take it that the fiction here warded off is on the one hand the
fictitious composition of new books, and on the other hand the
fictitious or corrupting and changing or mutilating treatment of
known books. In neither case does true knowledge allow of
addition or of curtailment. The following sentence has at least
two possible senses. It may mean a guarding of the text in the
books from falsification. But it may refer to the reading the
Scriptures in church, and would then mean that the reading is to
be a direct reading, keeping exactly to the words of the text, not
changing or paraphrasing them. If that sentence refers thus to

154 THE CANON

the public reading, then the following would fit well with
homiletic commentating on the text. The explanation of the
text must be legitimate and diligent, without running into
dangerous questions or doctrines, and as well without blasphemy ;
but it must above all be according to the scripture, that is to say,
that scripture agrees with itself, and that scripture must interpret
scripture. It seems to me that the opening with the teaching of
the apostles and the closing with the First Corinthians' view of
love, compels us to take the words scripture here as applying to
the New Testament as well as to the Old.

Before leaving Irenseus we must read a few words that
Eusebius has saved for us from the close of one of his books.
It was that book About the Eight that, as we saw above, he sent
to the heretical friend Florinus who had turned Valentinian.
Eusebius writes : " At which place, at the end of the book,
having found a lovely note of his, we must of necessity add it
here in this book. It reads thus : I adjure thee who dost copy
this book by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by His glorious coming,
in which He comes to judge living and dead, that thou compare
what thou copiest, and that thou correct it carefully, according
to this original, from which thou hast copied it, and that thou
likewise copy off this oath and put it in your copy " (H. E. 5. 20).
It was a much too small matter for the use of the oath by Christ
and His glorious coming, but that lay in the method of thought
of these dreamy and fiery representatives of an apocalyptic cast
of Christianity.

Irenseus has done well by us. He has given us a most full
use of the' New Testament, quoting even the book of Acts at
great length. And he has discussed for us in a very welcome
manner the state of the question as to the valuation of the
Gospels in his day. It is true he writes in the years between 181 •
and 189, but his view of the books of the New Testament is not
one that he first conceived of while writing. His view of the case
in the year 155 was probably precisely the same.

We have, it is true, thus far moved freely and far in the
Church and in the Roman Empire, passing repeatedly from
Syria in the East to Gaul in the West. Nevertheless we have to
a great extent had more to do with the Greek language and
with Greek writers than with other languages and with those who
used them. The question arises whether or not we can find at

THE AGE OF IREN^IUS— SYRIA 1 55

this early time witnesses from some of the other literatures, from
Churches using other languages. I personally am inclined to
think that we can. Others think not. Let us begin with Syria.
When did Christianity gain a foothold in Syria ? Remember the
character of Antioch in Syria as a second capital of the Empire,
with the wealth and the trade of Syria pouring into it, and with
an important university. Consider, further, the Christian con-
stellation there, and the part played by Antioch as a starting-point
for mission journeys. Barnabas, Paul, Peter, and how many
other eminent Christians of that time we know not, spent much
time there. Of course the city was largely Greek, but the Syrian
element was not, could not be, lacking.

The free intercourse between Palestine and Antioch was
shown distinctly at the time of the questionings about Gentile
and Jewish Christians that found a solution on the occasion
of the visit of a committee headed by Barnabas and Paul to the
mother Church at Jerusalem. Now the very fact of the occurrence
of such a question at Antioch, and the circumstance that Paul at
Antioch openly reproved Peter for changing his habit of life at
the coming of certain Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, seem to
point to the presence there of at least a number of Aramaic-
speaking Christians. Their Aramaic, if they came from Jerusalem,
was closely related to the language of the north, for it had come
from there. It seems to me then in every way probable that
at that early date, speaking roughly, before the year 70, there
were in Antioch Aramaic-speaking Christians. Edessa was not
far from Antioch, not as far from Antioch as Damascus was.
Nisibis was not far, not as far again beyond Edessa. If we
should go down towards the south-east, Babylon was not three
times as far from Antioch as Damascus was. Enough of that
about distances. We find a reference to Peter's being at Babylon.
It is the custom with some scholars to insist upon it that that
was Rome and not Babylon. To me it appears to be only
reasonable to suppose that Peter and other Christians who spoke
Aramaic did some mission work, going out from Antioch to
Edessa, Nisibis, and, we add because it really is named for Peter
himself, to Babylon.

I have no doubt, although I have not a word about it in books,
that there were Syrian Christians in Syria itself in the three cities
named, before the death of Paul. If anyone chooses to put it

156 THE CANON

all thirty years later, he will have Christians there in the year 100.
The next wing in this castle in the air is the statement that these
Syrian Christians of the year 70, or even of the year 100, may be
supposed by the year 150, or at latest 170, to have reached such
a number, and to have attained so much education and so much
insight into the value of the Greek Gospels and Epistles, as to have
made not merely verbal, but also written translations of them.
In spite of the lack of external testimony, I regard the opinion
that the Syriac version of the bulk of the New Testament books
was in existence, say in the year 170, to be a very modest one.
So far as we can tell, this Old Syriac translation contained all the
books of our New Testament except the Revelation and the four
Epistles, Second and Third John, Second Peter and Jude. The
Revelation was at that time chiefly used in the West. Second
and Third John were more private letters, and Second Peter was
scarcely generally known before the close of the third century.
That Jude should be missing seems strange.

The Old Latin translation arose probably in North Africa.
Rome and Southern Italy in Christian circles were too thoroughly
Greek at first to need a Latin text. It appears to have been
made at or soon after the middle of the second century, and to
have been used, for example, by the translator of Irenseus.
Tertullian, who began to write at least in the year 190, tells us
that before the close of the second century the Christians filled
the palace, the senate, the forum, and the camp. I think we may
count upon the existence of this translation as early as the year
170 at the least. It seems to have contained the four Gospels,
the book of Acts, thirteen Epistles of Paul, First Peter, First,
Second, and Third John, Jude, and Revelation. Perhaps it
included Hebrews, with the name of Barnabas as author, or
without a name at all. James and Second Peter do not show
themselves. We may remark, that First Peter does not seem to
have been read much in the Latin Churches. It does not, how-
ever, appear to have been called in question.

The Coptic translations I am inclined to date also from the
last quarter of the second century, but some Coptic scholars think
them to be much later.

When we find that the Syrian and Old Latin and Coptic
witnesses are more rare and less profuse in the second century
than the Greek witnesses, we should never fail to recall the cir-

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— OLD LATIN 1 57

cumstance, that the persistence and preservation of the latter
witnesses by no means forces or even permits us, then, to conclude
from the present lack of the former witnesses, that Christianity
did not flourish in those lands under those races, and that there
were no written monuments in those tongues. Greek was the
common language then, and the number of people who spoke,
read, and wrote Greek was, it is true, very large. This had its
effect upon the number of books that were written in Greek.
Whoever wished to reach a wide circle of readers was impelled to
write Greek. And this had its effect also upon the number of
Greek books that were preserved. A greater number of people
took an interest in Greek books, and cared to have them copied
off and handed down. That seems to me to be quite certain.
Nevertheless, I do not in the least doubt that from a very early
date, possibly not only in Syria but also in Northwestern Africa
and in Egypt, there were many Christians, and at least a few
Christian writings. But Syriac and Old Latin and Coptic
Christian writings were on the one hand less, much less, plentiful
than Greek Christian writings, because there were not so many
people who could read them, and who therefore would order them
to be copied off. These writings were in the next place, by
reason of the limited range of their circulation, not so well pre-
pared by the survival of chance copies in one place and another
to outlive the general vicissitudes of literature. In the third
place, the separatistical movements in those Churches did much
to sever their few books from the use of the Church. And in
the fourth place the political turmoils, with the attendant destruc-
tion of cities and libraries, committed much greater havoc among
these limited books and places ; this is the reverse of the second
point. Could we imagine that the centre of Christianity for the
time from Paul's first missionary journey down to the year 350
had been in Babylon, or even in Edessa or in Nisibis, we should
certainly have had a far different literary Christian harvest from
those years. More would have been written in Syrian, and more
would have been preserved.

We are nearing the close of the second century. The Age
of Irenseus closes with the year 200. It is pertinent at this point
to take a review of what we have thus far seen. At this time we
find in the hands of the Church, in the hands of the larger
number of great Churches upon the usual lines of travel, the

158 THE CANON

larger part of the New Testament books. The four Gospels, the
book of Acts, the First Epistle of Peter, the First Epistle of John,
thirteen Epistles of Paul, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the book
of Revelation. It is not strange that in one place or another the
scanty amount of Christian literature does not supply us with a
sign of life for one book or another. That is not necessary.
When we are doubly and triply assured, from the letter of Clement
of Rome from the year 96, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was
then known, valued, and almost learnt by heart by an eminent
and ready writer in the capital of the Empire, it really does not
make very much difference to us if we find that one man or
another towards the close of the century has failed to use that
book in what is preserved to us of his writings. When we find
that that same Clement of Rome in the year 96 uses the Epistle
of James, and that Hermas the brother of the Roman bishop
Pius uses it profusely about the year 140, we know surely that it
was at home at Rome early and late in this period, and it is a
matter of supreme indifference to us when this short letter fails
to put in an appearance in one writer or another in between or
later. Those authors did not write in the first place chiefly for
the purpose of telling us what books they had in their New
Testament. We must here, then, observe that the series of books
named above does not present itself to us at the close of this age
of Irenaeus as a new thing. The fact is, that no single sign has
been found that any book has been added to the list during this
period. On the contrary, from the first to the last every Christian
writer and even the heretical ones are clearly of the opinion that
the writings which we now have, and which they then received or
rejected, were on hand long before that time. If Marcion re-
jected Matthew, Mark, and John, it was not because they were
young, but because they did not suit him. He rejected the
books of the Old Testament which he acknowledged to be still
older. He rejected the Creator God not because He was a young
God, but because according to the history of Israel He was a bad
God, cruel, brutal, and bloodthirsty.

We have from this period, probably from the year 196, an
interesting example of the way in which the Churches passed
letters from one to another. Eusebius relates (H. E. 5. 25) that
the Palestinian bishops Narcissus and Theophilus, and with them
Cassius, bishop of Tyre, and Clarus, bishop of Ptolemaeis, had

THE AGE OF IREN^IUS— TRADITION 1 59

a meeting with others to pass resolutions about the apostolical
tradition touching the celebration of Easter. " At the close of
the writing " — that is to say, of the utterance of these bishops,
and that probably determined especially by the skilled and prac-
tical writer Theophilus of Csesarea — "they add to their words
the following : Try to distribute copies of our letters to each
Church, so that we may not be guilty in respect to those who
recklessly let their own souls go astray. And we make known
to you that at Alexandria they celebrate on the same day on
which we celebrate. For letters have reached them from us
and us from them. So that we celebrate the holy day with one
voice and together." These letters about Easter are a premoni-
tion of the later following Festal Epistles of the patriarch of
Alexandria announcing the proper play for Easter. And the
distribution of the letters Church by Church shows how readily
then written material could be produced and sent about among
Christians.

The Possibilities of Tradition.

We have now reached, naming the year 190 as doubtless
later than the composition of Irenseus' great work against the
heresies, a date that is about one hundred and sixty years distant
from the death of Jesus, one hundred and twenty-six years from
the death of Paul, and perhaps a little over ninety years from the
death of John, probably not ninety years from the death of Simon
the son of Clopas, who was possibly born about the same time
as Jesus. We have repeatedly taken occasion to call attention
to the way in which a long life has made a bridge for us between
extremely distant points of time. Now we shall do another
thing. The long lives of which we have spoken have in part
come to our notice more by chance than by any necessity of the
historical recital, in that some small incident, like Irenaeus' need
of writing to the heretical friend of his youth, has called forth
the story. Now I wish to say a word or two about tradition
in general, and to point to the possibilities of tradition, taking
examples from modern life. I wish to show the possibility of a
much more compact and far-reaching net covering this early field
of Christian history.

Let me begin with a soldier, Friedrich Weger, who in 1901

l6o THE CANON

was living at Breslau eighty-nine years old, still fresh and hale
in body and mind. He was born in 1812, served in the years
1834-1836, and took part in a parade before the Prussian King
Friedrich Wilhelm in. and the Russian Emperor Nicholas 1.
sixty-one years before 1901. — Another veteran celebrated in
sound health his hundredth birthday on March 14th, 1901.
His name was Hermann Wellemeyer, and he was a house-
carpenter in Lengerich in Westphalia. He served in the years
1 823-1 82 5, but he remembered distinctly the marching of the
French and Russian and Prussian troops through Lengerich, and
the general joy at the victory over Napoleon at Leipzig in 18 13. —
In the year 1899 there were living in Silesia in Schwientochlowitz
a working woman named Penkalla who was one hundred and
four years old, and in Domnowitz the widow of a veteran, Rosina
Nowack, who was one hundred and seven years old, and who
told with pleasure what she had seen as a child. — And in
the year 1904, Andreas Nicolaievitch Schmidt, a former orderly
sergeant, was still living at Tiflis and able to go about by himself,
although he was one hundred and twenty-two years old. He
fought in 181 2 at Borodino, and was wounded in 1854 at
Sebastopol. In 1858 he was sent to Siberia because he had
let a political prisoner escape. — In a parenthesis the curious
case may be mentioned of Sir Stephen Fox's daughters. He
married in 1654, and his first child, a daughter, was born and
died in 1655, three years before the death of Cromwell. After
losing several married children, he married late in life, and his
youngest daughter was born in 1727, seventy-two years after her
oldest sister. This daughter lived ninety-eight years, and died in
1825, when Queen Victoria was six years old. Thus there passed
one hundred and seventy years between the deaths of these two
sisters.

But it may be objected that these are all isolated cases.
Of course they are. Yet such isolated cases are occurring all
over the world. In many cases it is the merest accident that
brings such an old man to public notice. — In the year 1875,
referring to the sixtieth anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, the
Times newspaper in London gave the names of seventy-six
Waterloo officers who were still alive. — A man named Johann
Leonhard Roder, who was at the battle of Waterloo as a boy of
fifteen, was still living at Quincy, Illinois, in January 1907. — In

THE AGE OF IREN^US— TRADITION l6l

the year 1899, King Albert of Saxony celebrated at Dresden the
fiftieth anniversary of his first battle on the 13th of April 1849.
At that celebration there were drawn up before him, in the park
of his villa at Strehlen near Dresden, seven hundred veterans
from that year 1849. They were all more than seventy years
old. The king's military instructor, the oldest orderly sergeant,
named Schurig, was there eighty-five years old and gave a toast
to the king at lunch. There were seven hundred men whose
memory as grown men reached back fifty and largely more years.
Two such men would stretch over more than a century.

The most interesting case that I know of is connected with
Yale College. In the year 1888 a clergyman named Joseph
Dresser Wickham, who was in his ninety-second year and still
hearty in body and mind, was at the Alumni meeting. He had
entered college at fifteen, in the year 181 1. In that year 181 1
he saw and heard an alumnus who had left college in 1734,
seventy-seven years before. That alumnus was twenty-six years
old when he left Yale, and was one hundred and three years old
when Wickham saw him in 181 1. In the year 1716, eighteen
years before that alumnus left Yale, and when he was a boy
eight years old, the college was moved from Saybrook to New
Haven. The changing the place for the college caused much
stir and excitement, and the eight-year-old boy remembered the
change very well. Thus two men carried a tradition of a special
occurrence over the space of one hundred and seventy-two years.
Should we put that back into the second century, Irenseus the
bishop could reach from the year 178 back to the sixth year of
our Lord. Irenaeus at the year 150 would reach back to 22 b.c.
Justin the martyr, who was no longer young in the year 150,
would also reach back to 22 B.C. Do not forget Simon the son
of Clopas dying a martyr at one hundred and twenty years.
And if ninety-two and one hundred and three are rare old ages,
eighty and eighty are less rare, and eighty and eighty make, from
the twentieth year of each, one hundred and twenty years.
Observe, however, the single persons. One of the alumni
reached back seventy-seven years with his memory, the other
ninety-five years. Take again the year 150 for Irenaeus and the
older Justin. Seventy-seven years would carry them back to the
year 73, and ninety-five years to the year 55.

It is furthermore not to be forgotten that that time was a
11

1 62 THE CANON

time at which tradition was cultivated in a much higher style
than it is to-day. They did not have our newspapers and
chronicles and books. Tradition was almost all they had,
and they were used to thinking of it. They practised it care-
fully. They narrated. They listened. They studied it over.
They told it then to younger men. Now I wish to lay stress
upon two things. In the first place, we know very well of a
number of lines of tradition, for example the grandson of Jude,
Simon the son of Clopas, the daughters of Philip the evangelist
who had seen Paul for several days at their father's house in
Caesarea, and whom Polycarp saw at Hierapolis, and Polycarp
himself who probably saw John. That is enough for the
moment. In the second place, however, if we are scientific
enough to consider the whole growing Church from Jerusalem
and Antioch to Ephesus and Smyrna and Thessalonica and
Corinth and Rome and Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, and to
conjure up to ourselves the occasional Christian societies in
countless places in between, — if we consider this large field, and
I shall now not say the possibility, but the necessity of there
having been many men and women of seventy and eighty, and
some men and women of ninety overlapping each other, we shall
be ready to concede that the course of Christian tradition has
not been in the least a frail and weak passage from Paul to
Irenseus, from John to Clement of Alexandria. A judicial view
of the field — the writer of any given statement is always to his
own way of thinking judicial — wall refuse to suppose that at
Antioch (Alexandria?), Smyrna, Corinth, and Rome, as repre-
sentatives of great provinces of Christianity, there were any gaps
in the living and seething life of the Church between Paul and
Irenseus.

Testimony for Separate Books. — Matthew.

In approaching thus the year 200, what have we before us
in the way of clear use of the books of the New Testament?
We have in advance presupposed that the most of them were in
existence, and where we do not hear of anything to the contrary,
anything that excludes their early existence and proves their
later composition, we go upon the theory that they are in use.
Nevertheless, what do we positively and directly know about

THE AGE OF IREN^US— MATTHEW 1 63

their use before the year 185, before Irenseus' great work?
Let us take up the books. The Gospel according to Matthew
was quoted apparently in the Great Declaration written by Simon
Magus or by some close pupil of his. Hippolytus (6. 16) gives
the words thus : " For somewhere near, he says, is the axe to the
roots of the tree. Every tree, he says, not bearing good fruit, is
cut down and cast into the fire." No one will be surprised that
he quoted loosely. We have seen how loosely good Christians
quoted, and Simon Magus could not be expected to be more
careful than they. For the followers of Cerinthus, and it doubt-
less holds good also for Cerinthus himself, Epiphanius tells us
(28. 5) directly that they used this Gospel. He says : " For they
use the Gospel according to Matthew in part and not the whole
of it, because of the birth list according to the flesh " ; and again
(30. 14) : " For Cerinthus and Carpocrates using for themselves,
it is true, the same Gospel, prove from the beginning of the
Gospel according to Matthew by the birth list that the Christ
was of the seed of Joseph and Mary." He may well have
had a Gospel with a different reading in the first chapter of
Matthew.

The Ophites also used this Gospel. " This, they say, is what
is spoken (Hippolytus, 5. 8 ; p. 160 [113]) : Every tree not making
good fruit is cut down and cast into fire. For these fruits, they
say, are only the reasonable, the living men, who come in through
the third gate." From the seventh chapter they quote (5. 8 ;
p. 160 [114]) : "This, they say, is what he saith : Cast not that
which is holy to the dogs, nor the pearls to the swine, saying that
the words about swine and dogs are the intercourse of a woman
with a man." And again from the same chapter, turning the
words around in memory (5. 8; p. 166 [116]): "About these
things, they say, the Saviour spoke expressly : That narrow and
strait is the way leading to life, and few are those entering in
to it ; but broad and roomy is the way that leads to destruction,
and many are they that pass through by it." And still from
the same chapter (5. 8; p. 158 [112]) "And again, they say, the
Saviour said : Not everyone saying to me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he that doeth the
will of My Father which is in the heavens." They give (5. 8;
p. 160 [113]) the parable of the Sower from the thirteenth chapter
just as anybody might quote it from memory : " And this, they

l6\ THE CANON

say, is what is spoken : The one sowing went forth to sow.
And some fell by the wayside and was trodden down, and some
on rocky ground, and sprang up, they say, and because it had
no depth withered away and died. And some fell, they say, on
good and fit ground, and made fruit, one a hundred, another
sixty, another thirty. He that hath ears, they say, to hear, let
him hear." One of their quotations brings a quite intelligible
loose combination or confusing of two verses in the same thir-
teenth chapter. It is a capital specimen of a wild quotation
(5. 8; p. 152 [108]): "This, they say, is the kingdom of heaven
lying within you like a treasure, like leaven hid in three measures
of meal."

Just of the same kind is the following from the twenty-third
chapter (5. 8; p. 158 [112]) : "This, they say, is that which was
spoken : Ye are whitened tombs, filled, they say, within with
dead bones, because the living man is not in you." And there-
upon they recur to the twenty-seventh chapter : " And again,
they say, the dead shall go forth from the graves, that is to say,
the spiritual, not the fleshly ones, being born again from the
earthly bodies." The Sethians quote from the tenth chapter
(5. 21 ; p. 212 [146]) : "This is, they say, that which is spoken:
I came not to cast peace upon the earth, but a sword." Basilides
knew this Gospel. It is the merest chance that the little we have
from him touches Matthew, just touches it. He was speaking of
everything having its own time (7. 27; p. 376 [243]), and
mentioned thereat : " the wise men who beheld the star." How
easily could he have failed to use that example, or could
Hippolytus have failed to quote the five words ! The so-called
letter of Barnabas uses, as was mentioned above, the technical
phrase " it is written " for a quotation from this Gospel (ch. 4) :
" Let us give heed, lest, as it is written, we should be found : Many
are called, but few are chosen." These words might have been,
yes, they may have been a common proverb in the time of Jesus,
and the author of this letter could have quoted them as a well-
known everyday proverb. But he does not do that. He quotes
them as scripture, and doubtless has Matthew in view. When he
writes (ch. 19) : " Thou shalt not approach unto prayer with an evil
conscience," he may have the words of Jesus in Matthew in his
mind, but it is not necessary that he should. His words (ch. 19):
" Thou shalt not hesitate to give, nor when thou givest shalt thou

THE AGE OF IREN^US— MATTHEW 1 65

murmur ; but thou shalt know who is the good payer back of the
reward," looks very much like a reference to the sixth chapter of
Matthew. He quotes Matthew, but takes a curious view of the
apostles when he writes (ch. 5) : " And when He chose His own
disciples, who were going to preach His gospel, they being beyond
all sin the most lawless ones, that He might show that He did not
come to call righteous but sinners, then He manifested Himself to
be a Son of God." One of his short summing-ups (ch. 7) seems
to have Matthew's account of the trial before Pilate as a basis :
" And they shall say : Is not this the one whom we once crucified,
deriding and piercing and spitting (upon Him)? In truth this
was the one who then said that He Himself was a Son of
God."

We have very little of what Valentinus wrote, and neverthe-
less Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 2. 20. 114) has, as men say,
happened to save up for us a beautiful passage from him which
gives us a few words from Matthew. Valentinus quotes and then
comments upon the thought. I give his first sentence and then
a later sentence which appears to show us what his text was
here, what reading he had : " And one is good, whose revelation
was openly through the Son; and through Him alone could the
heart become clean, every evil spirit being thrust out of the
heart. ... In this manner also the heart so long as it does not
reach wisdom, being impure, being the dwelling-place of many
demons ; but when the only good Father turns His eyes upon it,
it is made holy and beams with light ; and he is blessed who
has such a heart, for he shall see God." Is not that beautiful?
And it tells us that Valentinus knew and valued Matthew.

Epiphanius (33. 8) has given us some quotations from
Ptolemaeus, Valentinus' disciple, including a letter written to a
Christian woman named Flora ; and in this he shows clearly that
he uses Matthew. Ptolemaeus is explaining the state of the Law
to Flora : " Thus, therefore, also the law confessed to be God's
is divided into three parts, on the one hand into that which was
fulfilled by the Saviour ; for the word : Thou shalt not kill, thou
shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not swear falsely, is com-
prised in the neither being angry, nor lusting after, nor swearing.
And it is divided into that which is finally done away with. For
the word : Eye for eye and tooth for tooth, being woven about
with unrighteousness and having itself something of unrighteous-

1 66 THE CANON

ness, was annulled by the Saviour by the opposites. And the
opposites annul each other : For I say unto you, Resist not evil
at all. But if any one strike thee upon the cheek, turn to him
also the other cheek." There we have both a quotation from
Matthew and a summary based upon Matthew. And the
same text that we found above in Valentinus is used again by
Ptolemaeus in this letter, saying : " And if the perfect God is
good according to His own nature, as He is, — for the Saviour
declared to us that one alone is the good God, His own Father, —
then the one of the opposite nature is characterised not only as
bad, but also as wicked in unrighteousness."

For another of Valentinus' pupils, the very little known
Heracleon, we have in Origen's commentary (13. 59) on John a
pair of sentences that point to Matthew. In one he uses the
phrase : " Supposing that both body and soul are destroyed in
hell." In the other : " He thinks that the destruction of the
men of the Demiurge is made plain in the words : The sons of
the kingdom shall go out into outer darkness."

Among the many who indulged in the fancies of Valentinus'
system was a man named Mark, apparently a Syrian, and his
followers, who were called Marcosians. They are said to have
written spurious Gospels. Yet it is plain that they used and
treasured highly our four Gospels. For Matthew we may take
the following which Irenseus brings from them (1. 20. 2) : "And
to the one saying to Him : Good teacher, He confessed the truly
good God, saying : Why dost thou call Me good ? One is good,
the Father in the heavens. And they say that the heavens are now
called the Eons." Again Irenaeus writes : " And because He did
not answer to those who said to Him : With what authority doest
Thou this? but confounded them by His return question, they
explain that He by so speaking showed that the Father was un-
utterable." Then Irenaeus places before us their use of the
treasured verses in the eleventh chapter: "And again saying:
Come to Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. And learn of Me, (they say) that He announced
the Father of the truth. For what they did not know, they said,
this He promised to teach them. . . . And as the highest point
and the crown of their theory they bring the following : I confess
Thee, Father, Lord of the heavens and of the earth, that Thou
hast hidden (these things) from the wise and prudent, and hast

THE AGE OF IREN.EUS— MATTHEW 1 67

revealed them to babes. Thus, O Father, because grace was
granted Me before Thee. All things were given over to Me by
My Father. And no one knows the Father except the Son, and
the Son except the Father, and to whomsoever the Son may reveal
Him." This, as Irenaeus then explains, they apply to their notion
that the God of the Old Testament had not the least in common
with the good God of the New Testament : " In these words
they say that He shows most clearly that the Father of truth
whom they have also discovered, was never known to anyone
before His coming. And they wish to insist upon it that the
Maker and Creator was ever known of all men, and that the Lord
spoke these words of the Father who was unknown to all, whom
they set forth." They base thus their main theory on the Gospel
according to Matthew in this point, in which they undoubtedly
followed in the footsteps of Valentinus. And we see, in spite of
all that is said about other Gospels, that these are their real
Gospels, these are their foundation and tower.

We have already shown above that Justin Martyr appears to
have known the Gospel according to Matthew. To make
assurance doubly sure, we find in the Dialogue with Trypho the
second chapter of Matthew used and discussed more than once.
He impresses it upon the Jew that Herod got his information
from the Jewish presbyters (ch. 78) : "For also this King Herod
learning from the elders of your people, the wise men then coming
to him from Arabia and saying that they knew from a star that
appeared in the heaven that a king was born in your country, and
we are come to worship him." Justin continues the story at
length, combining it with Isaiah. It is in connection with this
that he speaks, as given above, of Herod's slaying all the boys in
Bethlehem. More than twenty chapters later (ch. 102) he returns
to this chapter again. Here he again reverts to the journey into
Egypt, and offers a possible objection : " And if anyone should
say to us : Could not God have rather slain Herod ? I reply :
Could not God at the beginning have taken away the serpent
that it should not exist, instead of saying : I will put enmity
between him and the woman, and his seed and her seed ? Could
He not at once have created a multitude of men?" And he
again reverts to this a chapter later (ch. 103). Then he gives the
etynology of Satan from sata, an apostate, and nas, a serpent —
SatanaS) and continues : " For this devil also at the same time

1 68 THE CANON

that He went up from the river Jordan, the voice having said
to Him : Thou art My Son, I to-day have begotten Thee, in the
memoirs of the apostles it is written, coming up to Him also
tempted Him so far as to say to Him : Worship me, and that
Christ answered him : Go behind Me, Satan, the Lord thy God
shalt thou worship, and Him alone shalt thou serve." Again
he writes (ch. 105) : "For also urging on His disciples to surpass
the method of life of the Pharisees, and if not that they should
understand that they will not be saved, that He said, this is
written in the memoirs : Except your righteousness abound above
the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
the heavens." At another place he writes (ch. 107) : "And that
He was going to rise on the third day after being crucified, it is
written in the memoirs that men from your race " — that is to say,
Jews, like Trypho — " disputing with Him said : Show us a sign.
And He answered to them : An evil and adulterous generation
seeketh a sign, and a sign shall not be given unto them " — unto
the people of that generation — " save the sign of Jonah." In the
fragment on the Resurrection (ch. 2), Justin quotes Matthew :
" The Saviour having said : They neither marry nor are given in
marriage, but shall be like angels in the heaven." Of course he
quotes here as elsewhere loosely.

We have already seen what Papias says about the work of
Matthew in writing the Sayings of the Lord in Hebrew. I am
inclined to suppose, as I have already explained, that that refers
to the book which lies at the basis of the three synoptic Gospels.
It may be that Papias as well as Eusebius, supposed that
Hebrew book to have been accurately translated in and to be
precisely our Matthew. The knowledge of Hebrew was not so
widespread as to compel us to suppose that the assumption that
the Hebrew book agreed with our Matthew was correct. Nothing
indicates in the least that Papias did not have and hold and
treasure our four Gospels.

As for Athenagoras, he quotes Matthew loosely, possibly
bringing in a word or two from Luke. He writes (ch. 11):
" What then are the words on which we have been brought up ?
I say unto you : Love your enemies, bless those who curse you,
pray for those who persecute you, so that ye may be sons of your
Father in the heavens, who causes His sun to rise on the evil and
good, and rains upon just and unjust." One of his summaries

THE AGE OF IREN^US— MATTHEW 1 69

(ch. 11) seems also to point certainly to the same Sermon on the
Mount : " For they do not place before us words, but show good
deeds : being struck, not to strike back, and being robbed, not
to go to court, to give to those who ask, and to love the neigh-
bours as themselves."

Theophilus, in the passage above touched (3. 14), gives
Matthew thus : " But the gospel : Love ye, it saith, your enemies,
and pray for those who revile you. For if ye love those who
love you, what reward have ye ? This do also the robbers and
the publicans. And those who do good, it teaches not to boast,
that they may not be men-pleasers." The following (2. 34) points
doubtless to Matthew : " And all things whatsoever a man does
not wish to be done to himself, that he should neither do to
another."

Tatian seems to have used Matthew in a very strained way to
back up his asceticism. Clement of Alexandria describes the
agreement of the Law and the Gospel in reference to marriage,
and then gives the forced interpretation of Tatian (Strom. 3. 12,
86 and 87) : "Saying that the Saviour spoke of the begetting of
children, on earth not to lay up treasures where moth and rust
destroy." And a few lines farther on : " And likewise they take
that other saying : The sons of that age, the word about the
resurrection of the dead : They neither marry nor are given in
marriage."

But we have given enough passages to show that, during the
time that we have thus far paid attention to, the Gospel according
to Matthew was used freely and in circles widely distant from
each other, and as a book that had a position out of the common
run of books. Let me say at once that we should not look for
such a general application of Mark and Luke. The position of
Matthew as the first of the four Gospels, and perhaps the naive
character of the history of the birth and temptation of Jesus in it,
have secured to it at all times, and, if I am not mistaken, still
secure to it to-day, a frequency of perusal that the two other
synoptic Gospels cannot equal. Matthew is read more than the
others, save perhaps by the people who with heroic consistency
compel themselves to pay like honour to every part of scripture,
and who therefore read in unvarying course from the first
chapter of Genesis up to the last chapter of the book of
Revelation.

\yO THE CANON

Mark.

For the Gospel of Mark we shall have little to bring forward,
for the reason just given. There is a curious coincidence with
Mark in Justin Martyr's dialogue, which shows us that he knew
and used this Gospel. Only this Gospel gives us the name of
Sons of Thunder for the sons of Zebedee, and it gives it to us in
the same list of the apostles in which it tells us that Jesus called
Simon by the name Peter. Justin writes (ch. 106): "And the
saying that He changed the name of Peter, one of the apostles,
and that it is written in his " — " his " memoirs is here then the
Gospel according to Mark which was regarded, as we have seen,
as based partly on what Peter told Mark — " memoirs that this
took place, and that with him also others, two brothers, who were
the sons of Zebedee, were supplied with the new name Boanerges,
which is Sons of Thunder, this was a token that He was that one
by whom also the name Jacob was given to Israel and to Auses
Jesus" — Joshua. Perhaps Justin has the close of Mark in his
thoughts in the following passage in the fragment about the
Resurrection (ch. 9), although he also brings near the beginning
words that, recall to us Matthew : " Why then did He rise with the
flesh that had suffered, were it not for the purpose of showing the
fleshly resurrection ? And wishing to confirm this, His disciples
not believing that He had truly risen in the body, while they were
gazing and doubting, He said to them : Have ye not yet faith ?
He said : See that it is I. And He permitted them to touch Him ;
and He showed them the prints of the nails in His hands. And
when they had recognised him from all sides, that it was he and
in the body, he begged them to eat with him, so that by this
they should learn certainly that He was truly risen in the flesh.
And He ate honeycomb and fish. And thus having shown
them that it was truly a resurrection of flesh, wishing to show
them also this — as is spoken : your dwelling is in heaven — that
it was not impossible even for flesh to come up into heaven, He
was taken up into heaven as He was in the flesh, they gazing
at Him." As for Papias, we have already seen how very de-
finitely he described the writing of the Gospel by Mark in
connection with what Peter had told him about Jesus. And
we have seen that the Muratorian fragment seems to give the
same or a like view of the case.

THE ACE OF IRENiEUS— LUKE 171

Luke.

The Gospel of Luke is more largely used. It was a fuller
and more attractive book than Mark. The Ophites refer to it.
Hippolytus speaks of their mentioning both Assyrian and
Phrygian mysteries, and joins to the latter (5. 7 ; p. 140 [100, 101]) :
" The blessed nature of things past and things present and things
to come, which is at one and the same time concealed and re-
vealed, which he says is the kingdom of heavens sought within a
man. Then they quote the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. The
words in Luke are : " For behold the kingdom of God is within
you." We know how readily the kingdom of heaven or the
heavens is written for the kingdom of God. That is one of the
instances of the influence of the Gospel according to Matthew.
A similar citation of the same text by the Ophites was given
above. One passage that they use (5. 7 ; p. 142 [102]) looks a
little like the seven times sinning of the brother as given by
Luke : " And this is that which is spoken, they say, in the scrip-
ture : Seven times the righteous will fall and will rise again." If
they have not this place in view, it is hard to say what had
induced the form of the sentence. A few lines later they give
the verse we have so often found in use among the heretics :
" This one they say is alone good, and about him they said that
was spoken by the Saviour : Why dost thou say that I am good ?
One is good, My Father in the heavens, who causes His sun to
rise upon just and unjust, and rains upon saints and sinners."
The fact that they tie the words from Matthew on to the words
from Luke only shows how carelessly they quote from memory.
Another passage or two in Luke seem to be touched in the
following phrase (5. 7 ; p. 144 [103]) : "Like a light [not] under
a bushel, but put on the candlestick, a sermon preached upon
the houses, in all streets and in all byways and at the houses
themselves."

Basilides interprets Luke's words of the angel to Mary in the
sense of his system (7. 26 ; p. 374 [241]) : " The light came down
from the Seven, which came down from the Eight above to the
son of the Seven, upon Jesus the son of Mary, and He was
enlightened, having been enkindled by the light shining upon
Him. This is, he says, what was spoken : Holy Spirit shall come

172 THE CANON

upon thee, the spirit from the sonship having passed through the
boundary spirit to the Eight and the Seven as far as Mary, and
power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, the power of
judgment from the peak above [through] the Demiurge down to
the creation, which is to the Son." The same passage is used by
Valentinus (Hipp. 6. 35): "When, then, the creation came to
an end, and it was necessary that the revelation of the sons of
God, that is to say, of the Demiurge, should take place, [the
uncovering of] the hidden condition in which the psychical
man was hidden and had a veil over his heart ; when, then,
the veil was to be taken away and these mysteries were to be
seen, Jesus was born of Mary the virgin according to the word
spoken : Holy Spirit shall come upon thee. Spirit is the
Wisdom. And the power of the Most High shall overshadow
thee. The Most High is the Demiurge. For which reason that
which is born of thee shall be called holy."

Heracleon seems to allude to Luke in his reference to a most
original way of branding the sheep in the Christian flock. It is
Clement of Alexandria who tells us of it. Clement says (Eel.
Proph. 25), in speaking of John the Baptist's words, that the one
coming after him would baptize " with spirit and fire. But no
one baptized with fire. Yet some, as Heracleon says, marked
with fire the ears of those who were sealed" — "baptized."
Irenaeus and Epiphanius say of the Carpocratians that they
branded their ears. Clement of Alexandria also quotes the
passage from Luke : " And when they shall bring you before
synagogues," and then tells us directly that Heracleon comments
on it (Strom. 4. 9. 71): "Heracleon, the most approved of the
Valentinian school, explaining this passage, says word for word
that confession is on the one hand in faith and in manner of
life, and on the other hand with the voice. The confession,
then, with the voice takes place also before the authorities, which,
he says, many in an unsound way regard as the only confession ;
but even hypocrites can confess this confession." There is, then,
no room for doubting that Heracleon knew and valued Luke.
It does not, however, follow from this passage that he wrote a
commentary on the whole Gospel. He may have treated this
and other passages singly in connection with discussions upon
the Valentinian system. Luke was one of their books. The
wide spread of that system and of its many branches and side

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— LUKE 1 73

developments makes the acknowledgment of our four Gospels
upon the part of the Valentinians of extreme importance for the
general acceptance of these Gospels in all Christian circles before
the time of Valentinus. He did not invent or write these books
He found them in stated use, and used them too.

Justin Martyr gives us two allusions to Luke in one breath,
and continues the sentence with a phrase from Matthew. Let
us look at the passage (Dial. 103) carefully. "For in the
memoirs, which I say were composed by His apostles and by
those who followed with them " — those who followed with them
refers here directly to the same Greek word as the one used by
Luke of himself at the beginning of his Gospel, refers directly to
Luke himself who is the only one to give us the phrase that is
pointed out — " that sweat flowed down in blood drops " — here
the word blood, which Luke puts in, is left out, but the Greek
word used for drops is especially used for drops of blood, half
congealed — "He praying and saying: Let this cup, if it be
possible, pass by." The words of this petition are rather the
words of Matthew than the words of Luke. We have, however,
no reason to think that Justin meant to change from one Gospel
to another. He is full of his theme, and totally regardless of
trifles of expression. He goes to the point, and he gives the
point aright. It should be observed, that his drawing these
words unconsciously from Matthew here, although he begins with
Luke, is not to be used as a sign that his manuscript of Luke
here had a reading of Matthew in it. Justin did not look at the
text of either Gospel. He quoted from memory. The fact that
he brings in Matthew is only another proof of the prevailing,
certainly unconscious, tendency to which attention was called
above, to use Matthew more than the other synoptic Gospels.

Again, Justin cites Luke and follows it up with various words
from Matthew. We have here to do with Luke alone. He
writes (Apol. 1. 16): "And about being ready to endure evil
and to be servants to all men and to be without anger, what He
said is this : To him that striketh thy cheek, offer also the other
one, and thou shalt not forbid the one taking thy garment or thy
coat." It is hardly necessary to say that that is loose quoting
and from memory. We are now accustomed to this habit of
Justin's. In a like hapless way he joins Mark and Luke (Apol.
1. 76): "For if through the prophets in a hidden way it was

174 THE CANON

announced that the Christ would be a suffering one and after 'hat
ruling over all, still even then that could not be conceived of by
anybody until He moved the apostles to herald these things
clearly in the Scriptures. For He cried before being crucified :
It is necessary that the Son of Man suffer many things, and be
rejected by the scribes and Pharisees, and be crucified ; and on
the third day rise again." Here we have directly from Justin
the statement that what the apostles wrote, that is to say, that
not only the Old Testament, but also the New Testament, was
scripture. And that was spoken, moreover, to Trypho the Jew.
Justin quotes the same passage or rather passages twice besides
this in his Dialogue, and the words are each time a trifle different.
■It is head work, not out-of-book work. Just before the last
quotation he gives another passage from Luke and puts centi-
pedes in, which is certainly still more vivid : " And again in other
words He said : I give you power to tread upon snakes and
scorpions and centipedes, and upon every might of the enemy."
He could " remember" a fitting word right into the text without
the least difficulty. As for Hegesippus, we have already seen
that in his account of the death of James the Just, the last words
of James agree with the words of Jesus in Luke asking God to
forgive his murderers. We saw that Theophilus of Antioch had
chiefly to do with the Old Testament, but he knows and uses
Luke. He writes (2. 13) : "And the power of God is shown in
this, that at the first He makes what is, out of things not existing
and as He wills. For what is impossible with men is possible
with God." It is clear that the Gospel according to Luke is in
wide use in the Church.

John.

Thus far we have found that the three Gospels called the
synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, were in use in the
Church, and we have understood why the Gospel according to
Mark was less frequently quoted than the other two. The Gospel
according to John stands by itself. It was undoubtedly, I think,
written after the other three, and probably towards the close of the
first century. If we remember that the Christians of the earliest
years sought eagerly the accounts of Jesus' life, we might suppose,
on the one hand, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke would be

THE AGE OF IREN^US— JOHN 1 75

preferred to John because they give so many little details of what
Jesus did and so many short and striking utterances of Jesus ; and,
on the other hand, that John would be slighted because he gives
so little of Jesus' movements, and such long and lofty discourses.
And we should not be surprised if the late origin of John should
cause it to be less used and to have less authority than the other
three. Let us see.

Simon Magus in speaking of the beginning of all things as
infinite power, appears to refer to the preface to John. Hippolytus
writes (6. 9; p. 236 [163]), that Simon, after pointing to the
habitation in which the book of the revelation of voice and name
out of the intelligence of the great and infinite power is found
" Says that this habitation is the man born of bloods ; and he
says that the infinite power dwells in him, which is the root of
all things." The reference to John is there all the more likely
because Simon is speaking of the beginning. In another place
Simon may possibly refer to Jesus' words to the Samaritan
woman, when he says (6. 19; pp. 254, 256 [175]) that Jesus
"seemed to suffer in Judea, not having suffered, but having
appeared to the Jews as Son, and in Samaria as Father, and
among the rest of the nations as Holy Spirit ; and that He
suffered Himself to be called by whatever name men chose to
call Him." I do not think that that needs to be a reference to
John.

The Ophites quote John more than once. We begin with
the preface to John (5. 8; p. 150 [107]): "For all things, they
say, were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made.
And what was made in Him is life." They referred also to the
water made wine (5. 8 ; p. 152 [108]): "And this is the water,
that in that good marriage, which Jesus turning made wine.
This, they say, is the great and true beginning of signs which
Jesus made in Cana of Galilee, and revealed the kingdom of the
heavens." The kingdom of the heavens is the phrase of Matthew.
The third chapter and the conversation with Nicodemus are
clearly known to them (5. 7 ; p. 148 [106]) : " For mortal, they say,
is all the birth below, but immortal that which was born above ;
for it is born of water alone and Spirit, spiritual, not fleshly. But
that which is below is fleshly. This is, they say, that which is
written : That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the Spirit is spirit. This is according to them spiritual

176 THE CANON

birth." Again, they name the living water of which Jesus spoke
to the Samaritan woman (5. 7; p. 140 [100]): "For the
announcement of the bath is according to them nothing else
than the leading into unfading joy the one bathed according
to them in living water and anointed with an unspeakable
anointing." Someone might be inclined to think that this
phrase had nothing to do with John ; but just as as if to prove
the point they refer to the living water in another place (5. 9 ;
p. 174 [121, 122]): "And we are, they say, the spiritual ones,
those who choose for themselves the habitation from the living
water of the Euphrates flowing through the midst of Babylon,
walking through the true gate, which is Jesus the blessed."
Observe the allusion to John in the last phrase too.

But we must add further for the living water the direct
quotation of the verse, — a quotation which is all the more valuable
because it, in its freedom, does not give the word living alone, but
also the word welling up, springing up, and yet leaves out ever-
lasting life. Speaking of the river Euphrates (5. 9 ; p. 172 [121]) :
" This, they say, is the water which is above the firmament, about
which, they say, the Saviour spoke : If thou knewest who it is
that asketh thee, thou wouldst have asked from Him and He
would have given thee to drink living water welling up." In
another passage they follow up the Samaritan story (5. 9 ; p. 166
[117]): "For a spirit, they say, is God. Wherefore, they say,
neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall the true
worshippers worship, but in spirit. For spiritual, they say, is
the worship of the perfect ones, not fleshly. And the spirit, they
say, is there where the Father is, and is named also the Son,
being born from this Father." The quotation is free enough,
but it is beyond doubt a quotation from John.

A like freedom is shown in the following from the fifth
chapter of John (5. 8; p. 154 [109]): "This is, they say, that
which is spoken : We heard His voice, but we did not see His
form." From the sixth chapter (5. 8; p. 158 [112]): "About
this, they say, the Saviour spoke : No one can come to Me, unless
My heavenly Father draw some one." And they add : " It is
altogether difficult to receive and accept this great and unspeak-
able mystery." From the same chapter the following words are
drawn, but they are mixed up with other words from John and
from the synoptists (5. 8; p. 152 [109]: "This, they say, is

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— JOHN 1 77

what the Saviour spoke : If ye do not drink My blood and eat
My flesh ye shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens.
But even though ye drink, He says, the cup which I drink,
whither I go, thither ye cannot enter in." Then they combine
the ninth and the first chapter of John (5. 9; p. 172 [121]):
"And if anyone, they say, is blind from birth, and not having
beheld the true light that lighteth every man that cometh
into the world, through us let him look up and see. . . ."
Again they quote from the tenth chapter, using the word gate
instead of door. At this point the word is the more fitting
because they had just cited Genesis (5. 8; p. 156 [in]): "This
is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of
heaven. Therefore, they say, Jesus saith : I am the true gate."
The Peratae say (5. 16; p. 194 [134]): "This is the great
beginning, about which it is written. About this, they say, it is
spoken : In the beginning was the word " — and so on until —
"what was made in him is life. And in him, they say, Eve
was made, Eve is life." Again they say: "This is that which is
spoken (5. 16; p. 192 [134]) : And as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up."
They quote the following freely (5. 12; p. 178 [125]): " This is,
they say, that which is spoken: For the Son of Man did not
come to destroy the world, but that the world should be saved
through Him." They contrast to the Father in the heavens,
from whom the Son comes, the evil Demiurge (5. 17; p. 196
[136]): "Your father is from the beginning a manslayer, he
speaks of the ruler and Demiurge of matter, ... for his work
worketh corruption and death." They quote aright the door
(5. 17 ; p. 198 [137]) : "This, they say, is that which is spoken :
I am the door."

The Sethians give a long and complicated explanation of the
birth from water, and combine with it a coming down from above
on the part of God and spirit and light, and they continue that
the perfect man not only must needs enter into the womb of the
virgin, but also that he then was cleansed from the impurities of
that womb, and drank the cup of living water welling up, which
it is in every way necessary that the one should drink who is
going to put off the servant form and put on the heavenly
garment." Hippolytus quotes also the same verse from the
Gnostic Justin, whom he discusses immediately after the Sethians,
12

178 THE CANON

and apparently as one of them. Justin says that the earthly and
psychical men are washed in the water below the firmament, but
the spiritual living men in the living water above the firmament,
and he refers to the book of Baruch and to the oath of "our
father Elohim." After this Father had sworn and had seen what
no eye had seen (5. 27; p. 230 [158]): "He drinks from the
living water, which is a purifying bath to them as they think," —
I take it, to the Sethians — " a spring of living water welling up."
In an extremely disagreeable connection reference is made to
the scene in which Jesus entrusts Mary to John, and synoptic
words are united closely to those drawn from John (5. 26 ;
p. 228 [157]) : "Woman, thou hast thy Son, that is the psychical
and earthly man " — that which was left upon the cross, — " and
He, placing His spirit in the hands of the Father, ascended to
the Good." The Greek text seems to demand the rendering :
placing or taking in His hands the spirit of the Father, as if this
spirit were the medium of the power to ascend. We have already
given above two passages in which the noted Gnostic Basilides
quoted John.

Ignatius the Antiochian bishop speaks to the Magnesians
of God (ch. 8) : " Who revealed Himself through Jesus Christ
His Son who is his Word, going forth from silence " — a Gnostic
phrase, — "who was well-pleasing in every respect to Him that
sent Him." That gives us at once two plain allusions to John.
To the Philadelphians (ch. 7) he writes: "The spirit" — this is
here Ignatius' own spirit — "is not led astray, being from God.
For he knoweth whence it cometh and whither it goeth, and
reproves the things which are hidden." He tells the Romans
(ch. 7) : " The ruler of this world wishes to make a prey of me,
and to corrupt my thought of God." Just after that he refers
to the living water : " For living I write to you, wishing to die.
My longing is crucified, and there is no fire in me loving matter.
But there is water living and speaking in me, saying within
me : Come to the Father ! " And a line later : " I wish for
God's bread, which is . the flesh of Jesus Christ, the one from
the seed of David, and I wish the potion His blood, which is
His love incorruptible." He speaks to the Philadelphians (ch. 9)
of the high priest : " He being the door of the Father, through
which Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the prophets and the
apostles and the church enter in." It is plain that Ignatius is

THE AGE OF IRENvEUS— JOHN 1 79

full and running over with the Gospel of John, even if he does
not copy off whole paragraphs of it for us.

Valentinus the Gnostic shows us that he knows the Gospel
of John very well. We saw above that his whole system seems
to proceed from this Gospel. Hippolytus, condensing Valentinus's
words, writes (6. 35): "Therefore all the prophets and the law
spoke forth from the Demiurge," from a foolish God, he says,
fools knowing nothing. On this account, he says, the Saviour
saith : " All who came before Me are thieves and robbers."
Ptolemaeus quotes from the preface to John in his letter to Flora
(Epiph. 33) : " Moreover He [the Saviour] says that the making
of the world was His own, and that all things were made by
Him and that without Him nothing was made." And Irenaeus
gives us another quotation of his from the same preface (Haer.
1. 8. 5): "And he says that the Son is truth and life, and that
the Word became flesh. Whose glory we beheld, he says, and
His glory was such as that of the only begotten, which was
given to Him by the Father, full of grace and truth. And
He speaks thus : And the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us, and we saw His glory as of the Only-Begotten by the Father,
full of grace and truth. Exactly therefore he also showed forth
the Four, saying : Father and Grace and the Only-Begotten and
Truth. Thus John spoke about the first Eight and the mother
of all Eons. For he said : Father and Grace and Only-Begotten
and Truth and Word and Life and Man and Church." The
name John is doubtless put in by Irenaeus. And Irenaeus refers
to the attempt to show Jesus' distress or perplexity (Haer.
1. 8. 2) : " And His consternation likewise, in that which was
spoken : And what I shall say, I know not," which points to the
twelfth chapter of John.

As for Heracleon, whom Origen calls an acquaintance of
Valentinus', and whose commentary on John he often quotes in
his own commentary on that Gospel, Origen says, for example
(2. 14 [8]): "He adds to the not one" — that is: and without
him was not one thing made which was made — " of the things
in the world and in the creation." Origen charges him with
forcing interpretations, and that without testimony to back up
what he says. How sharply he looked at Heracleon's words we
can see by another passage (6. 15 [8]): "The difference 'the
prophet' and 'prophet' has escaped many people, as also it did

l8o THE CANON

Heracleon, who says in just so many words : that then John
confessed not to be the Christ, but also not a prophet and not
Elias." And he adds that Heracleon ought to have examined
the matter more carefully before he said that. Origen tells us
(6. 40 [24]) that Heracleon read Bethany and not Bethabara
for the place where John was baptizing. Again he writes (6. 60) :
" Heracleon again at this passage, without any preparation and
without bringing references, declares that John spoke the words :
Lamb of God, as a prophet, and the words : That taketh away
the sins of the world, as more than a prophet," and Origen con-
tinues to describe Heracleon's explanation of the verses. We
need nothing more than that to prove that Heracleon was
thoroughly at home in John.

We have not, so far as I know, any reference to John in
what is left of Marcion's words. We know that he only
accepted the Gospel of Luke. Nevertheless we find a word or
two in Hippolytus' account of Apelles, a disciple of Marcion's
which can scarcely have come from any other source than
John. The curious and the interesting thing is that Apelles
combines this with words from Luke. Perhaps he thought he
was only quoting Luke, although he was adding what he had
really read in John. I give parts of the passage (7. 38) :
"And that Christ had come down from the power above and
was its Son, and that this one was not born of the virgin, and
that the one appearing was not fleshless he says, . . . and that
after three days having risen He appeared to the disciples,
showing the marks of the nails and of His side, persuading them
that it was He and not a phantasm, but that He was in the
flesh. . . . And thus He went to the good Father, leaving
behind the seed of the life to the world to those who believe
through the disciples." The prints of the nails and the side
are from John, and the expression the seed of the life sounds
much like John.

As for Hermas, we have seen that dreams are not fields
for quotations, yet he seems to have used John. He writes,
for example : " It was necessary for them, he says, to go up
through water, that they may be made alive, for they could not
otherwise enter into the kingdom of God." The allusion in the
latter part seems to be to the conversation with Nicodemus,
and then the words through water and be made alive remind

THE AGE OF IREN^US— JOHN l8l

us of the being born again. Explaining to Hennas the rock
and the gate the shepherd tells him (Sim. 9. 12) : "This rock
and the gate is the Son of God." And again : " Therefore
the gate was new, so that those about to be saved should
enter in by it into the kingdom of God." That is the
word of Jesus: "I am the door," John io7-9. Speaking of
the sheep he says (Sim. 9. 31): "But if He shall have found
some of these scattered, woe shall be to the shepherds," io12- 13.
Jesus receives commands and power from the Father (Sim. 5. 6) :
" He then having cleansed the sins of the people showed them
the paths of life, giving them the law which He received from His
Father. Thou seest, he says, that He is Lord over the people,
having received from His Father all power." The homily, which
used to be called Second Clement, appears to point to John's
preface when it says (9. 5); "If Christ the Lord who saved us,
being at the first spirit, became flesh, i14, and thus called us,
so also we shall in this flesh receive our reward. Let us love
each other, 47- 12, so that we may all come into the kingdom
of God."

We have already seen that Justin Martyr used the story
about Nicodemus, and we have besides learned how recklessly
he quotes from memory. He calls Jesus the Word (Apol.
1. 63): "The Word of God is His Son," i1*18. And again
(Apol. 1. 63) : "These words have become a proof that the Son
of God and apostle Jesus is the Christ, who was formerly the
Word, . . . now, however, by the will of God become man
for the human race," i1-14. He approaches in the following
the only [begotten] (Apol. 2. 6): "And His Son, the one
called alone by way of eminence Son, the Word being with
Him and begotten before the creatures, when at first He
created and ordered all things through Him." That is from
John, i1"3, 18, through and through. In another place he writes
of certain opinions of the Jews (Apol. t. 63) : " For those
saying that the Son is the Father are proved to be men who
neither understand the Father nor who know that there is a
Son unto the Father of all things, who is the Word and the
first born of God, and is God," i1- 18. Again he says (Apol.
1. 32): "And the first power after the Father of all things
and ruler God is also a Son the Word, who in what manner
being made flesh He became a man, i14-18, we shall say in

I 82 THE CANON

the following." That can only be from John. Again (Apol.
i. 32): "He declared that Christ has blood, but not from the
seed of man but from the power of God, i13." Again (Apol.
1. 5) : "The Word being formed and becoming man and being
called Jesus Christ, i14." Again : " And Jesus Christ alone was
born particularly a son to God, being his Word and first born
and power, i18." Justin says that the heathen philosophers
and poets and writers (Apol. 2. 13): "Each uttered it clearly,
seeing something related to them from the part of the divine
Word which was scattered abroad. ... As many things there-
fore as are well spoken by all belong to us the Christians, for
we worship with God and love the Word from the never born
and unutterable God, since also He became man on our account,
xi. 14." Again he writes (Dial. 105): "For as I showed before,
this one was the Only-Begotten to the Father of all things, i18,
Word and power sprung especially from Him, and afterwards
becoming man by the virgin, as we learned from the Memoirs."
The Gospel of John must have been one of the Memoirs. He
writes of John the Baptist from the Gospel according to John
(Dial. 88): "The men supposed that He was the Christ; to
whom also He cried : I am not the Christ, but the voice of one
crying, i20- 23." Jesus says that He only does what the Father
teaches Him, what pleases the Father, and Justin writes (Dial.
56): "For I say that He never did anything except what He
that made the world, above whom there is no other God,
wished Him to do and to speak, 4s4 519-30 716 828-29 i249-50"
(comp. Dial. 56). That covers a number of passages in John.
Justin speaks twice of the man blind from birth, whom we
find only in John 91"41. We saw in the Muratorian fragment
that the First Epistle of John was mentioned with the Gospel.
A phrase in Justin (Dial. 123) reminds us both of the Gospel
and of the First Epistle and in the Epistle of a singular
reading : " And we are called true children of God and we
are, those who keep the commandments of the Christ, 1 John
31-22." Justin must have known the Gospel of John very well.

As for Papias, who gave us such, clear statements about
Matthew and Mark, we are compelled to take a second-hand
witness. But it speaks so definitely that it can scarcely invent
the fact. A short preface to John in a manuscript in the Vatican
Library says that Papias speaks of John at the close of his five

THE AGE OF IREN/EUS— ACTS 1 83

books, and declares apparently that Papias himself wrote it at
John's dictation. That is probably a mistake for Prochorus.
Again we come to the First Epistle, for Eusebius tells us that
Papias quotes it. Hegesippus, as we have already observed,
appears to refer to John in naming the door of Jesus. Athena-
goras says (Suppl. 10): "But the Son of God is the Word
of the Father in idea and energy. For of Him and by Him
all things were made, the Father and the Son being one. And
the Son being in the Father and Father in Son, in oneness and
power of spirit, mind and Word of the Father, the Son of God,
ji. i8» jn another passage he seems to paraphrase a verse in
the seventeenth chapter (Suppl. 12): " And we are furthered
on our way alone by knowing God and the Word with Him
what the oneness of the Son with the Father is, what the com-
munion of the Father with the Son is, what the spirit is, 1 73- 21."
Theophilus was the first one to mention this Gospel of John
by name, the first one of the writers whose books have reached
us. Tatian beginning his harmony of the Four Gospels with
the beginning of John and the fragment of Muratori, with the
attempt to explain the origin of the Gospel, close our series
worthily. We have found that John was not at all less open
to quotation because it did not give details of the life of Jesus
in great masses. And nothing has pointed to an inclination
to give this Gospel the go-by because it was written at a late
date. The Christians who accepted this book so quickly are
likely to have had good authority for their view that it was
closely connected with the Apostle John.

Acts.

We now come to the book of Acts. It is a matter of course
that it cannot have had for the early Christians the same value
as the Gospels. The inclination to write and to read history as
such was at the beginning of Christianity extremely small. The
eyes of all were directed to the near future in which the world
would close and the new, the heavenly life, would begin. Never-
theless we know that this book was in the hands of the churches
at an early date — we may ieave the date for the moment in-
definite— and we find occasional references to it. Th^ letter to

1 84 THE CANON

Diognetus refers to it (ch. 3) : " For he that made the heaven
and the earth and all things that are in them and supplies us
with all things that we need, doth Himself lack none of the
things which He supplies to those who think that they give [to
Him], Acts i724-25#» Polycarp of Smyrna quotes Acts directly
(ch. 1) : "Who endured for our sins up to meeting death, whom
God raised up, loosing the bonds of Hades, Acts 224." Hermas
appears to have Acts in view when he writes (Vis. 4. 2) : " Believ-
ing that thou canst be saved by no one except by the great and
celebrated name, Acts 412." The Exhortation to the Greeks
which is associated with the works of Justin Martyr seems to
have Acts in mind when it writes of Moses (ch. 10): "But he
was also regarded worthy to share in all the education of the
Egyptians, Acts 722." Hegesippus, whom we quoted, seems to
refer to Acts when he speaks of James as being a true witness
to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ, Acts 2021.
The letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons refers to the
story of Stephen the first martyr, Acts 68-760. And finally, the
fragment of Muratori names the book regularly, while Irenaeus
quotes and paraphrases many paragraphs from it. Irenaeus is a
witness to the opening of a new time. We found that the early
Christians did not lay great stress upon history. Irenaeus does,
and therefore makes much of Acts.

The Catholic Epistles.

In approaching . the Catholic Epistles we come upon some-
thing new, something that is very different from what we have
thus far had before us. The Four Gospels and the book of Acts
were large books. The Gospels claimed a special authority and
value as accounts of the words and work of Jesus. The Acts
seemed to busy themselves with the whole of rising Christianity,
and were often supposed to include the acts of all the apostles,
as, for example, the fragment of Muratori said. These five large
books were not to be overlooked. If a church or a private man
had bought one of them, he had had to pay well for it. The
papyrus, or the parchment, and the work of writing these books
had their equivalent in a round sum of money. The Catholic
Epistles were on the contrary small books ; in a New Testament

THE AGE OF IREN^US— CATHOLIC EPISTLES 1 85

lying at hand the book of Acts, for example, takes about ninety
four pages, and James, the longest of the Catholic Epistles, only
about ten pages. Now, a little letter like that would, on the one
hand, be easily copied off, so that if there had been a great
demand for it it could have been easily distributed widely
through the churches. But such a little letter could, on the
other hand, without difficulty escape notice. The purchaser would
not need to pay so very much for it, and would therefore in so
far be less conscious of having it. It would the more readily
pass out of his thoughts because it had cost him little.

These letters could then, as short letters, have been easily and
comparatively cheaply copied had people wanted them. Did
many Christians wish for them ? At the first blush a modern
Christian would say : Yes, they did wish for them. James was
the first bishop of Jerusalem and the brother of Jesus, Peter was
the great apostle, the leader of the twelve, John was the beloved
disciple, and Jude was the brother of Jesus. On the face of it,
that seems plausible. But we must try to get away from our
conception of the value of these Epistles. We must ask what
the Christians of that day probably thought of them. To begin
with James and Jude, they were, it is true, brothers of Jesus,
and if their letters were genuine they should have been treasured
by the Church. Yet we must agree, in the first place, that we
Know of no mission work on their part that impressed their
names, their personalities, and their influence upon those circles
of Christians to whom the greater part of the books of the New
Testament were entrusted. They were doubtless active in some
way, but we find no great signs of their activity in western and
in Greek-speaking districts. And in the second place, the
longer of the two, the letter of James, was addressed to the
twelve tribes in the diaspora, and appeared therefore, however
generally intended, to be particularly Jewish in its aim, while the
two or three pages of Jude's letter, if really from Jude, Jude
being named as a brother of James, were full of the Old
Testament and of Jewish fables, and must therefore have
appealed to the Jewish more than to the Greek Christians.
These two letters were therefore not good candidates for a wide
circulation among the Christians west of Palestine.

First Peter claims for us consideration because of the name of
the chief of the twelve. When, however, we go back to early

I 86 THE CANON

times we see at once that the whole trend of the greater numbei
of Christians was towards Paul and not towards Peter. During
the second century, as we have seen, "the Apostle" was. Paul.
It did not occur to anyone that Peter was the great apostle. Paul
was the great apostle. We must not forget that this trend towards
Paul is not a splitting of the Church into Pauline and Petrine
Christians. Far from it. The Christians who could be expected
to be Petrine are almost without exception, and without having
any thought of being peculiar, Pauline Christians. The greatest
division in the early Church, that became for a while in a sense
independent, was the split caused by Marcion, and that was
in the other direction. That threw everything Jewish over-
board. The upshot of this is, then, that a letter from Peter
could in no wise offer a particular rivalry to the letters of Paul.
And therefore this letter too was not likely to be so widely
copied and read. Second Peter I do not regard as genuine, and
I see no reason to suppose that it should have been known at
this time. As for the Epistles of John, we have already observed
that the first one was apparently closely attached to the Gospel,
almost as if it were an appendix to it, so that it has a peculiarly
good stand. I do not suppose that the Second and the Third
Epistles emerged from the obscurity of private possession long
before the point of time at which we now are, and if that
supposition be just, it is not strange that they should not be
quoted. Besides their private character, their limited size, their
small contents made the possibility of quoting the less. They
are in comparison not quoted very much to-day.

James.

The Epistle of James is perhaps the basis for Clement of
Rome when he writes (ch. 10) : " Abraham, named *he friend, was
found faithful in his becoming obedient to the words of God."
This seems more likely to be taken from James 223 than from
Isaiah 418, or 2 Chronicles 207. Hermas' Shepherd is simply
full of James, full of the spirit, the thoughts, and the words of
James. The ninth commandment begins : " He says to me :
Take away from thyself doubt," and gives then a long develop-
ment of James i8, which runs on with variations into the

THE AGE OF IRENJttJS— JAMES, FIRST PETER 1 87

following two commandments. The doubter and doubt are
scourged in many passages as of the devil. In the eighth parable
the shepherd says to Hermas (ch. 6) : " These are the apostates
and betrayers of the Church, and who have blasphemed the Lord
in their sins, and moreover also have been ashamed of the name
of the Lord which was named upon them," referring to James 27.
He touches James 315*17, putting faith in for wisdom (Mand. 9) :
"Thou seest then, he says, that faith is from above from the
Lord and has great power. But doubt is an earthly spirit from
the devil, having no power." The rich who cheat their labourers
are warned as in James 51*0 (Vis. 3. 9) : "See to it then, ye that
luxuriate in your wealth, lest those who are in want groan, and
their groaning shall go up to the Lord, and ye shall be shut out
with your good things outside of the door of the tower." In
another place he draws from James 412 (Mand. 12. 6): "There-
fore, hear ye me and fear Him that is able to do all things, to
save and to destroy, and keep these commandments, and live to
God." So far as we can judge of the Old Syrian translation it
contained the Epistle of James. One would look for this Epistle
in the East.

First Peter.

The First Epistle of Peter is referred to by Basilides. Clement
of Alexandria tells us where (Strom. 4. 12, 81) : "And Basilides
in the twenty-third book of his commentaries speaks about those
who are punished as martyrs as follows in these very words : For
I say this, that so many as fall under the so-called afflictions,
whether having sinned by carelessness in other faults they are
led to this good by the mildness of him who guides them, being
really accused of other crimes by others, that they may not suffer
as condemned for confessed wicked deeds, neither reviled as the
adulterer nor the murderer, but as being Christians, which will
comfort them so that they will not seem to suffer. And if any-
one comes to suffer who has not sinned at all in the least, which
is rare, not even this one shall be moved against the will of
might, but shall be moved as also the infant suffered that seemed
not to have sinned." That is 1 Peter 414"1G. The first part of
the letter to Diognetus adds 1 Peter 318 to Romans (ch. 9) : " He
gave His own Son a ransom for us, the holy one for the lawless

1 88 THE CANON

ones, the guileless one for the wicked ones, the just one for the
unjust ones, the incorruptible one for the corruptible ones, the
immortal one for the mortal ones."

Polycarp in his letter to the Philippians touches here and
there about ten verses of First Peter. He quotes i Peter ia
most loosely (ch. i) : "In whom not seeing ye believe with joy
unspeakable and glorified " — and continues with an allusion to
i12, — " into which many desire to enter." A few words later i13
comes in : " Therefore girding up your loins serve God in fear
and truth," — from which he passes to i21 : — " Leaving the empty
vain talk and the error of the many ; having believed on Him
that raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and gave Him
glory and a throne at His right hand." The following belongs
to i Peter 211 (ch. 5) : " For it is good to be cut off from the
desires in the world, for every desire wars against the spirit,"
even though 1 Peter has a different Greek word. Later we
find 1 Peter 212 (ch. 10): "When ye can do good, do not
put it off, for mercy frees from death. Be ye all subject
to one another, having your conversation blameless before the
heathen, so that from your good works also ye may receive
praise and the Lord may not be blasphemed in you." He quotes
1 Peter 224- 22 of Jesus (ch. 8) : " Which is Christ Jesus who bore
our sins in His own body on the tree. Who did no sin, nor
was guile found in His mouth, but He endured all for us, that
we may live in Him." Again he quotes and enlarges 1 Peter
39 : " Not returning evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, or
blow for blow, or curse for curse." And we find also 1 Peter
47 (ch. 7) : " Let us return to the word that was handed down
to us from the beginning, being sober unto prayers and holding out
in fastings." That is a very abundant use of First Peter for
Polycarp's short letter.

Among the few fragments of Theodotus, of the Valentinian
eastern school, that are preserved we have a quotation from 1
Peter i12 with Peter's name (Frag. 12) : " Into which angels desire
to look, Peter says." Hermas alludes (Vis. 4. 3) to 1 Peter i7 in
describing the four colours on the head of the beast : " And the
gold part are ye who flee from this world. For as the gold is
proved by fire and becomes good for use, so also are ye proved
who dwell in Him." Again (Vis. 4. 2) he quotes 1 Peter 57,
" Well didst thou escape, he says, because thou didst cast thy

THE AGE OF IREN^US— FIRST JOHN 1 89

care upon God and didst open thy heart to the Lord, and didst
believe that thou couldst be saved by none except by the great
and glorious name." Irenaeus quotes (1. 18. 3) from the Marcos^
ians a phrase that reminds us of First Peter : " They say that the
arrangement of the ark in the flood, in which eight people were
saved, most clearly pointed to the redeeming Eight." That
looks like 1 Peter 320 ; it uses the same Greek word for
" saved." As for Papias, Eusebius, in a passage already quoted,
says that he uses proof passages from First Peter. It may be
that Theophilus has 1 Peter i18 in mind when he writes :
"Believing in vain doctrines through the foolish error of an
opinion handed down from their fathers." The allusion to
First Peter is the more likely because Theophilus a few lines later
in a list of sins uses two designations given in 1 Peter 43, one
of which only occurs there in such a list. We have already
read above words from First Peter in the letter of the churches
at Vienne and Lyons ; this Epistle had reached the far west.
Irenaeus (4. 9. 2) quotes and names First Peter: "And Peter
says in his Epistle : Whom not seeing, ye love, he says, in whom
now not seeing ye have believed, ye will rejoice with joy un-
speakable." That is 1 Peter i8. The sentence is curiously
twisted. The word for unspeakable means rather "untellable."
The Old Syriac translation appears to have contained First
Peter.

First John.

When we turn to First John we must remember how much
testimony we have already had for it as bound fast to the Gospel.
The letter to Diognetus (ch. 10) refers to 1 John 419 : "Or how
wilt thou love the one who thus loved you before ? " Polycarp
(ch. 7) quotes, but freely, 1 John 42- 3, and perhaps 2 John 7 :
" For every one who shall not confess that Jesus Christ is come
in flesh, is antichrist. And whosoever does not confess the
testimony of the cross, is of the devil." Possibly First John
moved Valentinus (Hipp. 6. 29; p. 272 [185]) to write : "For
he was entirely love. But love is not love, if there be not the
thing loved." We have already seen that Justin Martyr and the
Muratorian fragment knew this Epistle, and it appears to have
formed part of the Old Syriac translation.

190 THE CANON

Second and Third John.

The two smaller Epistles of John do not find a place at the
first directly beside the Gospel and the First Epistle. They were
doubtless treasured highly and preserved carefully in the family
or families to some member of which they were originally sent.
Finally, as time went on, the Christians began to have a little
more thought for history, for archaeology, for personal reminders of
the apostles. Then the owners of these two letters gave them to
the Church in general, placed them in the circles over which they
had any influence, or handed them over to the circles nearest to
them. The clear reference to them in the fragment of Muratori
gives us no distinct view of what the author of the work from which
it was taken really thought about them. The text is at that point so
corrupt that we can only guess at its possible meaning. We may,
I think, say this about it. It is in the first place of importance
that these letters are named at all at this early period. In the
second place, it is of weight that they are not abruptly rejected as
fictions or as not genuine. In the third place, the sense of the
passage as originally written may have been to the effect that
these letters were held in honour in the Catholic Church, meaning
that they were regarded as being just as good, just as genuine as,
even if much less important than, the First Epistle of John or the
Epistles of Paul. In the fourth place, the mere fact of their not
being mentioned at the same time with the First Epistle would
seem to assign to them a lower value than to it, although the
separation might be due alone to the contents. We might give
this thought the turn, that the peculiar contents of the First
Epistle may well have induced the otherwise unusual union of it
with the Gospel, and thus its separation from the two other letters.
And in the fifth place, the original sense of the uncorrupted
sentence may have been, that these letters were not regarded as
of equal worth with the other Epistles, but that they were recom-
mended or perhaps only endured and allowed as writings that
could be read for general information and comfort, but as void of
all authority. In that I suppose these letters to have been mere
private letters, this species of depreciation, if the sentence should
some day be actually proved to have had this turn, would not be
of any great importance. The two letters might seem to be the

THE AGE OF IREN^US— 2. 3 JOHN, JUDE, PAUL 191

dictation of one growing feeble and inclined to repeat phrases
coined before by himself.

Jude.

The Epistle of Jude has a general address. Yet it must, as
said above, if genuine, have appealed especially to Jewish
Christians, and therefore have been less likely to be met with in
other circles. Up to this time the only mention of it is found in
the fragment of Muratori where it is joined to the Second and
Third Epistles of John of which we have just spoken. What was
said of them holds good for Jude, all but the reference to the
private character of those two letters.

The Epistles of Paul.

When we turn our thoughts to the writings of Paul we have
to keep in mind some general considerations. It is not uncommon
to find people point to 2 Thessalonians 22, where Paul says
that the readers shall not let themselves be alarmed by a letter
that may purport to be from him, but, as is suggested, is not from
him at all, but from some one who is trying to deceive them by
forging. It is not out of place, then, to ask at this point whether
or not we should suppose that a large number of letters forged in
the name of Paul were current in the early Church, and whether
it be likely that any such letters have succeeded in winning a
foothold among the Epistles which the Church assigns to Paul.
If, as I assume, Second Thessalonians be genuine, it is of a
comparatively early date among the Epistles of Paul, and if we
should be forced to concede that from that time onward until the
death of Paul, or even until still later, forgers, the same ones or
others, had continued this nefarious work, there certainly would
be room for a whole series of Epistles attached to Paul's name,
but totally opposed to his person and to his spirit.

Two reflections seem to me to make it altogether unlikely that
such Epistles continued to be forged. On the one hand, the very
reference to the frauds here made by Paul would have the tendency
both to check the activity of the deceivers and to make it hard or
useless for them to try to palm off their fabrications upon the

192 THE CANON

churches. And on the other hand, the long missionary work of
Paul, his passage from city to city, at least as far as Rome, the large
number not only of his acquaintances, but also of his intimate com-
panions and helpers, who knew what he had written and what he
had not written, and the large number of Epistles that he wrote,
must have made it exceedingly difficult for forgers to start their
fabrications upon a voyage of deceit throughout the Church
and very hard to prevent anything, that they might perchance
have succeeded in starting, from being detected, exposed, and
denounced in a dozen places that had the most accurate infor-
mation as to what he had written. Paul wrote so much that
forgers would have had too limited a field for action. Paul's
personal acquaintances were too numerous and too widely
dispersed throughout the Church to leave any districts of import-
ance unprotected from unscrupulous writers. It is therefore from
the outset not likely that a number of spurious Epistles bearing
the name of Paul were in the hands either of the great churches
in the cities or of the smaller churches in the provinces and in
remote districts.

Romans.

The Epistle to the Romans meets our eyes at the very
beginning in the letter of Clement of Rome. Of course, Clement
quotes freely, not from the roll before him but from memory.
To the question, how we may come to find a place among those
who await the Father and his gifts, he replies (ch. 35), among
other things : " If we seek out what is well-pleasing and accept-
able to him. If we accomplish the things that pertain to his
blameless counsel and follow the way of the Truth, casting away
from ourselves all iniquity and lawlessness, avarice, strifes, both
evil habits and frauds, both backbitings and slanders, hatred of
God, both pride and boasting, both vain glory and lack of
hospitality. For those doing these things are hateful to God, and
not only those doing them but also those who agree with them."
That is Rom. 129-32. And it was quoted thus at Rome about
the year 95, and quoted to the Corinthians, the people living
where Paul had been when he wrote Romans. The Ophites
(Hipp. 5. 7; pp. 138, 140 [99, 100]) quote Rom. i2°-23and 26-27.
It is clear that they quote this long passage, from the roll before

THE AGE OF IREN^US— ROMANS 1 93

their eyes. They attribute the words to the Logos, the Word,
and appear to say that Paul writes them. Basilides (Hipp. 7. 25 ;
p. 368 [238]) quotes Rom. 819- 22, but turned about and mixed up.
He says : " As it is written : And the creation itself groans (with
us), and is in travail awaiting the revelation of the sons of God."
In another place (7.27; p. 374 [241, 242]) he uses this very same
passage, but still more freely. He says : " When then all sonship
shall come and shall be above the boundary, that is the spirit, then
the creation shall be treated mercifully. For it groans until now,
and is tortured and awaits the revelation of the sons of God, so
that all the men of the sonship may come up thence." Again
(7* 25 > P- 37° C23^> 239]) ne touches this passage in this shape,
uniting to it Eph. i21: "Since then it was necessary, he says,
that we the children of God should be revealed, about whom,
he says, the creation groaned and travailed awaiting the revela-
tion, and the Gospel came into the world and passed through
all might and authority and lordship and every name that is
named." In another place (7. 25 ; p. 370 [238]) he refers to
Rom. 513, 14 from memory, and mixes the two verses together in
the sentence : " Therefore until Moses from Adam reigned sin,
as is written." That is enough for Basilides.

The letter to Diognetus (ch. 9) bases a long paragraph on
the two " times " of Paul, as, for example, in Rom. 321-26.
In that paragraph it quotes Rom. 832 which I gave above
in connection with 1 Pet. 318, and refers as follows to the
verses opening with Rom. 512 : " In order that the lawlessness
of many should be hidden in one just one, and the righteousness
of one should justify many lawless ones." Polycarp of Smyrna
(ch. 6) quotes Rom. 1410* 12 : " For we are before the eyes of the
Lord and God, and we must all stand before the judgment-seat
of the Christ, and each one give account for himself." This is
the constant loose quoting of those early days, which is after all
so very much like the loose quoting that is often to be heard
and to be read in these modern days. Valentinus (Hipp. 6. 35)
quotes Rom. 811 : " This, he says, is that which is spoken : He
that raised Christ from the dead will also make alive our mortal
bodies or psychical [bodies]. For the earth came under a curse."
Ptolemseus (Iren. 1. 8. 3) touches Rom. n16: "That the Saviour
received the first-fruits of those whom He was about to save,
[they say that] Paul said : And if the nrsi-fiuits are holy, so also

13

194 THE CANON

is that which is leavened (or the baking)." He may have Rom.
ii36 in mind when he says (i. 3. 4) : "All things are unto Him
and all things are from Him."

Heracleon refers (Orig. on John, vol. 20. [38 30]) to Rom.
134: "The one seeking and judging is the one revenging me,
the servant set for this purpose, who does not bear the sword in
vain, the revenger (the attorney or the judge) of the king." He
alludes (Orig. on John, vol. 13. 25) to Rom. 121, and in so
doing gives us an example of the way in which the second
century calls Paul "the apostle": "as also the apostle teaches,
saying that such piety (or service of God) is a reasonable service."
Again he points to Rom. i25, when he blames (Orig. on John,
vol. 13. 19) the former worshippers who worshipped in the flesh
and in error the not-Father : " So that all those who worshipped
the Demiurge alike went astray. And Heracleon charges that
they served the creation and not the true creator, who is Christ."
Theodotus (Fragm. 49) gives us in like manner Paul as " the
apostle," and quotes Rom. 820 : " Therefore the apostle said :
He was subject to the emptiness of the world, not willingly but
because of Him that subjected Him, in hope, because He also
will have been freed when the seed of God are gathered to-
gether." He uses (Fragm. 56) also Rom. n24 freely: "When
then the psychical things are grafted in the good olive tree unto
faith and incorruption, and partake of the fatness of the olive,
and when the heathen shall enter in, then thus all Israel shall
be saved." Again he writes down (Fragm. 67) Rom. 75 :
"When we were in the flesh, says the apostle, as if already
speaking outside of the body."

The presbyter whom Irenaeus cites (4. 27. 2) alludes to
Rom. 323 : " For all men are lacking in the glory of God, but
they are justified not from themselves but from the coming of
the Lord, those who await His light." And again (4. 27. 2)
he quotes Rom. n21 and 17 from memory curiously combined :
" And that therefore Paul said : For if He did not spare the
natural branches, lest He perchance also spare not thee, who
though thou wast a wild olive, wast grafted into the fat of the
olive and wast made a companion of its fatness." Justin Martyr
(Dial. 47) refers to Rom. 24: "For the mildness and the
philanthropy of God and the unmeasuredness of His riches
holds the one who repents from his sins, as Ezekiel says, for just

THE AGE OF IREN^US— FIRST CORINTHIANS 195

and sinless." Perhaps he has Rom. 126 half in mind when he
(Dial. 40) writes of Christ as of a paschal lamb : " With whose
blood according to the word (or the measure, perhaps) of their
faith in Him they anoint their houses, that is to say them-
selves, they who believe in Him." We have already seen that
the churches in Vienne and Lyons knew this Epistle. And
Theophilus of Antioch, writing to his friend Autolycus, gives
(1. 14) a loose quotation of Rom. 26*9, putting into the middle
of it 1 Cor. 29 and 69- 10, evidently altogether from memory. It is
a typical quotation : " Paying each one according to deserts the
wages. To those who in patience through good works seek in-
corruption He will give freely life everlasting, joy, peace, rest,
and abundance of good things, which neither eye hath seen nor
ear heard nor hath gone up into the heart of man. But to the
unbelieving and despisers and those not obeying the truth, but
obeying injustice since they are kneaded full of adulteries and
fornications and sodomies and avarices and the forbidden
idolatries, shall be wrath and anger, tribulation and straits. And
at the end eternal fire shall take possession of them."

First Corinthians.

The First Epistle to the Corinthians had a rare testimony to
its genuineness in the letter of Clement of Rome quoted above :
"Take up the Epistle of the sainted Paul the apostle. What
did he write to you first in the beginning of the Gospel ? " After
that we could almost dispense with later witnesses. Simon
Magus (Hipp. 6. 14 ; p. 244 [168]) uses 1 Cor. n32 : "This," he
says, " is that which is spoken : That we may not be condemned
with the world." The Ophites (Hipp. 5. 8 ; p. 158 [112]) bring
us 1 Cor. 213- 14 : " These, they say, are the things that are called
by all unspeakable mysteries : which [also we utter] not in
learned words of human wisdom, but in [words] learned of spirit,
judging spiritual things by spiritual, and the natural (psychical)
man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they
are foolishness to him. And these they say are the unspeak-
able mysteries of the spirit, which we alone know." In another
place (5. 8; p. 160 [113]) they play on the word for "ends" in
1 Cor. io11, using it also in the sense of "customs": "For tax-

196 THE CANON

gatherers, they say, are those taking the customs of all things,
and we, they say, are the tax-gatherers : Upon whom the customs
(taxes, instead of ends) of the ages have fallen." And they go
on to discuss the word. The Peratae quote (5. 12 ; p. 178 [125])
again 1 Cor. n32 and call it Scripture : "And when the Scripture
saith, they say : That we may not be condemned with the world,
it mentions the third part of the special world." Basilides (6. 26 ;
p. 372 [24a]) quotes also 1 Cor. 213 and calls it Scripture.
Ignatius in writing to the Ephesians (ch. 18) refers to 1 Cor. i20:
" Where is a wise man ? Where is one making researches ?
Where is the boasting of those called intelligent ? "

The letter to Diognetus (ch. 5) points to 1 Cor. 410-12 when it
says of the Christians : " They are dishonoured and glory in the
dishonourings. They are blasphemed and are justified. They
are reviled and they bless. They are insulted and do honour."
Polycarp, writing to the Philippians, names Paul (ch. 11) and
quotes 1 Cor. 62 : "Or do we not know that the saints shall
judge the world, as Paul teaches." Again (ch. 5) he quotes
1 Cor. 69-10: "And neither whores nor effeminate men nor
sodomites shall inherit the kingdom of God, nor those doing
unseemly things."

Valentinus gives us 1 Cor. 214 again (6. 34 ; p. 284 [193, 194]) :
"Therefore," he says, "the natural man does not receive the
things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, And
foolishness, he says, is the power of the Demiurge, for he was
foolish and without understanding, and thought he was working
out the world, being ignorant that Wisdom, the mother, the
Eight, works all things in him for the creation of the world
without his knowing it." The Valentinians (Iren. 1. 3. 5) quote
1 Cor. i18: "And they say that Paul the apostle himself refers
to this very cross " — they insisting upon it that the fan for
purging the threshing-floor was the cross — " thus : For the word
of the cross is to those who perish, foolishness, but to those
who are saved, the power of God." They bring forward (1. 8. 2)
also 1 Cor. 158 with n10 in this way: "And they say that Paul
sp )ke in the [Epistle] to the Corinthians : And last of all as to
the untimely born, he was seen also by me. And that he in the
same Epistle manifested the appearance to the Achamoth with
the contemporaries of the Saviour, saying : It is necessary that
the woman have a veil on her head because of the angels.

THE AGE OF IREN^US— FIRST CORINTHIANS 1 97

And that when the Saviour came to her, the Achamoth put on
a veil for modesty's sake." Again (1. 8. 3) they combine 1 Cor.
1548 and 214-15: "And [they say] that Paul, moreover, spoke
clearly of earthly men, natural men, and spiritual men. In one
place : Such as the earthly one is, so also are the earthly ones.
And in another place : And the natural (psychical) man does
not receive the things of the spirit. And in another place :
The spiritual man judgeth all things. And they say that the
phrase : The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit,
is spoken of the Demiurge, who being psychical did not know
either the mother who is spiritual, or her seed, or the sons in
the pleroma."

Heracleon (Orig. on John, vol. 13. 59 [58]) seems to refer
to 1 Cor. 28 when he speaks of: "The kingly one of the rulers
of this age." He gives 1 Cor. i553- 54 thus (13. 60 [59]) : "And
Heracleon does not regard the soul as immortal, but as having
need of salvation, saying that it is the soul which is meant in
the words : Corruption putting on (clothed in) incorruption and
mortality putting on immortality, when its death is swallowed up
in victory."

Theodotus, speaking of " the apostle," which, of course, is
Paul — a few lines farther he calls Peter, Peter — quotes (Fragm.
11) from him 1 Cor. 1 540 in this enlarged way : " Another glory of
the heavenly ones, another of the earthly ones, another of the
angels, another of the archangels." Then a little later (Fragm. 14)
he turns to 1 Cor. 1544: "Therefore the apostle: For it is sown
a natural (psychical) body, but is raised a spiritual body." And
again (Fragm. 15) he gives us 1 Cor. 1549 and 1312 : "And as we
bore the image of the earthly, so also shall we bear the image
of the heavenly, of the spiritual, being perfected by degrees. But
he says image again, as if there were spiritual bodies. And
again : Now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then
face to face." In another passage ( Fragm." 22) he quotes 1 Cor.
1529: "And when the apostle says: 'Since what will those do
who are baptized for the dead ? ' For in our behalf, he says, the
angels were baptized, of whom we are parts." This he discusses
at length. Like the Valentinians, he also (Fragm. 44) gives us
1 Cor. 1110. The passage is thoroughly Oriental. Wisdom sees
Jesus Christ, runs with joy to meet Him, and worships Him :
"But beholding the male angels sent out with Him, she was

198 THE CANON

ashamed and put on a veil. Because of the mystery Paul com-
mands the women : To wear power on the head because of the
angels." How absurd that the great Wisdom should be repre-
sented as feeling the Eastern feminine reluctance to be seen,
to have her face seen, by male persons, yes, by male angels.
Another remarkable passage (Fragm. 80), the last from Theo-
dotus, I must give in full, for it reaches from Nicodemus to Paul :
" He whom the mother bears to death is lead also to the world,
but whom Christ bears again to life is changed off to the Eight.
And they will die to the world, but live to God, so that death
may be loosed by death, and the corruption shall rise again.
For he who has been sealed by Father and Son and Holy Spirit
cannot be seized by any other power, and is changed by three
names of all the Trinity (?) in corruption. Having borne the
image of the earthly, it then bears the image of the heavenly,"
1 Cor. 1549. Of course that means that the corruption rises in
incorruption, and is changed from corruption to incorruption.

Hermas (Sim. 5. 7) seems to have 1 Cor. 316-17 in mind
when he writes that the shepherd says to him : " Hear now ;
keep thy flesh pure and unspotted, in order that the spirit
dwelling in it may bear witness to it, and thy flesh may be
justified. ... If thou soilest thy flesh, thou wilt soil also the
Holy Spirit. And if thou soil the spirit, thou shalt not live."
Justin appears (Apol. 60) to allude to 1 Cor. 24,5 in saying
that the Christians were largely humble, unlearned men, and
adding: "So that it may be understood that these things
did not take place by human wisdom but were said by the
power of God." It would be possible that Justin (Dial. 38)
thought of 1 Cor. i]9-24} or 27-8 when he wrote: "I know that
the Word of God said : This great wisdom of the Maker of all
and the all powerful God is concealed from you." He quotes
(Dial, in) plainly 1 Cor. 57: "For the passover was the Christ,
who was sacrificed afterwards." Perhaps we may see 1 Cor. 5s
in his words (Dial. 14): " For this is the sign of the unleavened
bread, that ye do not do the old works of the evil leaven."
Justin (Dial. 35) puts in, as if they were words of Jesus, the
phrase : " For He said : There will be schisms and heresies."
But it is not impossible that the words are in momentary forget-
fulness assigned to Jesus, and that they really are the reproduc-
tion of the impression made by 1 Cor. n18-19. When Justin

THE AGE OF IREN^US— FIRST CORINTHIANS 199

(Dial. 41) speaks of the Lord's Supper his phrase recalls 1 Cor.
n23-24. He says that the offering of flour for the one who had
been cleansed from leprosy : " Was a type of the bread of the
eucharist, which Jesus Christ our Lord handed down to us to
do in remembrance of the passion, which He suffered for the
men who were cleansed as to their souls from all wickedness."
At another place (Dial. 70) he alludes to the same passage as
follows : " It is clear that in this prophecy " — from Isaiah —
[reference is made] "to the bread which our Christ commanded
us to do in memory of His having been made body for the sake
of those who believe on Him, for whom also He became a
suffering one, and to the cup which He commanded us to do,
giving thanks, in memory of His blood.5' Finally, Justin seems
to be thinking of 1 Cor. 1212 when he writes (Dial. 42) : "Which
is what we can see in the body. The whole of the many
numbered members are called and are one body. For also a
community and a church being many men as to number are
called in the one calling and are addressed as being one
thing."

The essay on the Resurrection, whether from Justin Martyr
or not, refers (ch. 10) naturally to 1 Cor. 1542 or *° or 53 and 54.
It is an interesting passage which proceeds from the thought
that Jesus, if He had only preached the life of the soul, would
have done no more than Pythagoras and Plato : " But now He
came preaching the new and strange hope to men. For it was
strange and new that God should promise, not to keep incorrup-
tion in incorruption, but to make corruption incorruption." The
Exhortation to the Greeks turns in its freedom 1 Cor. 420
thus (ch. 35) : " For the operations of our piety are not in words
but in works." Instead of operations of piety we might say
simply : our religion.

Tatian is not content with 1 Cor. 75. Clement of Alexandria
(Strom. 3. 12. 85) tells us about it : "Therefore he writes word
for word in what he says about the state of mind according to
the Saviour : Symphony therefore fits well with prayer, but the
communion of corruption" — by which he means the marriage
bed — " destroys the supplication. And then he forbids it in a
repelling way through the agreement. For again he declared
that agreements to the coming together were because of Satan
and of a lack of temperance, about to persuade to serve two

200 THE CANON

masters, through symphony God and through not symphony
intemperance and whoredom and devil. And this he says
explaining the apostle, and he treats the truth sophistically,
building up a lie by means of a true thing." In another place
(3. 23. 8) Irenaeus tells us that Tatian used 1 Cor. 1522: "Since
in Adam we all die." The fragment of Muratori places the
letters to the Corinthians at the head of the list of Paul's
letters, or names the Corinthian church as the first of the seven
churches to which Paul wrote. We know, however, that the
apostle wrote to the Thessalonian church first, and that from
Corinth where he was founding a new church. Athenagoras in
his essay on the Resurrection (ch. 18) quotes 1 Cor. 1553 : "What
remains is clear to every one, that it is necessary according to
the apostle that this corruptible and fleeting should be clothed
in incorruption." He used a less common Greek word in
substituting in his memory fleeting for mortal.

Theophilus in writing to his heathen friend Autolycus (2. 1)
gives us a touch of 1 Cor. i18 or 21 or especially 23, and a living
proof of it. He says : " Thou knowest and rememberest that
thou didst suppose that our word " — that is here as much as :
our religion — "was foolishness." He uses the same passage later
of heathen who look down upon Christians. He may have
1 Cor. 27-8-10 in mind in writing (2. ^^) : "That shows that all
the rest have gone astray, and that only we Christians have given
place to the truth, who are taught by Holy Spirit that spoke in
the prophets and announced all things beforehand." At another
place (3. 2) Theophilus appears to have 1 Cor. g2G in mind. He
writes: "For in a certain way those who write what is not clear
beat the air." The word he uses for not clear is the one that
Paul uses for the manner of his running in the preceding phrase.
Again (1. 13) he alludes to 1 Cor. 1211: "All these things
worketh the wisdom of God." So also (1. 13) he quoted 1 Cor.
j cj36. 37 . « jror if, for example, perchance a grain of corn or of the
other seeds should be cast into the ground, first it dies and is dis-
solved, then it rises and becomes an ear." He brings 1 Cor.
1550 as the close of the following sentence (2. 27): "For God
gave us a law and holy commandments, which every one who
doeth can be saved and obtaining the resurrection inherit in-
corruption." And he also cites 1 Cor. i^-5i briefly (1. 7):
"When he shall put off that which is mortal and put on im-

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— 2 CORINTHIANS, GALATIANS 201

mortality, then he shall see God according to his deserts." This
collection of quotations from First Corinthians made by
Theophilus shows us that, in spite of all his need of using the
Old Testament, he knows well and knows how to apply the New
Testament books.

Second Corinthians.

When we turn to Second Corinthians we need not look for
such a free and full use of it as of the First Epistle. It did not
contain so much that was striking. I question very much
whether it is read so often to-day as the First Epistle. So far
as I can judge it is less frequently made the object of university
lectures. The Ophites say (5. 8 ; p. 158 [112]) in the words of
2 Cor. 122-4: "This gate Paul the apostle knows, opening it in
a mystery and saying : That he was snatched by an angel and
came as far as the second and third heaven, to paradise itself,
and saw what he saw, and heard words unspeakable, which it
is not permitted to man to speak." Basilides quotes ver. 4 at
another place (7. 26; p. 374 [241]) in direct words: "I heard
unspeakable words which it is not permitted to man to speak."
The letter to Diognetus (ch. 5) touches 2 Cor. io3: "Being in
flesh, but not living according to flesh." And again (ch. 5)
the first part of 2 Cor. 610 comes in : " Being punished they
rejoice as being made alive," and just before it the second part :
" They are poor and make many rich. They want many things
and abound in all things." Polycarp approaches 2 Cor. 414
when he writes to the Philippians (ch. 2): "And He that raised
Him from the dead will also raise us if we do His will and walk
in His commandments and love what He loved." In another
place (ch. 6) he combines 2 Cor. 510 with Rom. i410-12, just as
other writers did, and puts Christ instead of God as judge : " And
we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and each
one give account for himself." That is a very natural change.

Galatians.

The Epistle to the Galatians is quoted by the Ophites.
They say (5. 7; p. 138 [99]) of their Attis after Gal. 328 and 615;

202 THE CANON

11 He has gone over to the eternal nature above, where, they say,
there is neither female nor male, but a new creation, a new man,
who is male and female." At another place Adamas is named
as male and female. Explaining a passage of the Psalms they
say (5. 7 ; p. 148 [106]) : "That is from the confusion below to
the Jerusalem above which is the mother of the living," as in
Gal. 426, which reads : our mother. Justin the Gnostic (Hipp.
5. 26 ; p. 226 [155]) reproduces Gal. 517, but puts the soul, the
psyche, instead of the flesh : " For this reason the soul is drawn
up against the spirit and the spirit against the soul." Polycarp,
just after mentioning Paul and his letters to the Philippians,
calls faith (ch. 3), in the words of Gal. 426 about Jerusalem,
our mother : " Which is the mother of us all." And in the
words of Gal. 67 he writes (ch. 5) : " Knowing that God is not
mocked, we should walk worthily of His commandment and
glory." Theodotus writes (Fragm. 53) from Gal. 319: "And
Adam had unknown to himself the spiritual seed sown into
his soul by Wisdom, ordered by angels in the hands of a
mediator. And the mediator is not of one, but God is one."
In another place (Fragm. 76) he touches Gal. 327: "For he
that is baptized into God is taken up into God." It is a vague
remembrance of Galatians that shapes his phrase.

The Oration to the Greeks, possibly Justin Martyr's, gives
us Gal. 412 in a call of Christ's (ch. 5): "Come! Learn!
Become as I am, for I also was as ye are." And a few lines
farther on he takes up Gal. 520- 21 in passing : " Thus the Logos
drives away from the very corners of the soul the frightful
things of sense, first desire, by means of which every frightful
thing is born, enmities, strifes, anger, contending passions, and
the things like these." In two passages (chs. 95, 96) in his Dialogue
with Trypho, Justin Martyr quotes Deuteronomy in a form that
is not like the text of the Septuagint, but is just like the form
of the same passages given in Gal. 310 and 13. It is not
absolutely impossible that both Justin and Paul quoted from
some third source, some collection of Old Testament passages,
which gave the verses in the shape found. We know, however,
nothing of such an anthology, and it is therefore the only proper
thing to suppose that Justin quoted the passages from Galatians,
or rather quoted the passages in the words which Galatians
had impressed on his memory. Athenagoras (Suppl. 16) uses

THE AGE OF IREN.EUS— EPHESIANS 203

words from Gal. 49, when, having stated the view of the Peri-
patetics that the world was God's substance and body, he
writes : " We fall away to the poor and weak elements."

Ephesians.

The Epistle to the Ephesians i4 doubtless moved Clement
of Rome to write (ch. 64) : " Who chose our Lord Jesus Christ
and through Him us to be a special people." In another place
(ch. 32) he has in mind Eph. 28 and i5 : " Therefore they all have
been glorified and enlarged not through themselves, or their works,
or the righteous deeds that they have done, but through His will."
Again (ch. 46) he brings in Eph. 44"6 : " Or have we not one God
and one Christ and one spirit of grace poured out upon us and
one calling in Christ ? " Probably he thought of or was guided
by Eph. 418 in referring to the darkened understanding (ch. 36) :
"Through this One (Christ) our foolish and darkened mind
flowers up into His wonderful light." The following passage
(ch. 49) reminds us of Eph. 52 : " In love the Master took us up.
Because of the love that He had towards us Jesus Christ our
Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God, and His flesh
for our flesh and His soul for our souls." In two places (ch. 2
and 38) he returns to Eph. 527 : " Ye were all humble-minded,
boasting not at all, subjected [to others] rather than subjecting,"
and : " Let our whole body be saved in Christ Jesus, and let
each one be subjected to his neighbour as also he was set in
his grace." The Ophites quote Eph. 315 turned about (5. 7 ;
p. 136 [97]): "In order that the Great Man above may be
perfectly set in His might : From whom, as they say, every
fatherhood is constituted on earth and in the heavens." As
to the resurrection they say (5. 7 ; p. 146 [104]) with Eph. 514:
" Rise thou that sleepest and stand up, and Christ will enlighten
thee."

Basilides uses Eph. i21when he writes (5. 20; p. 356 [230]):
" For also that which is not unspeakable is not named unspeak-
able, but is, he says, above every name that is named." He
speaks also (7. 26; p. 374 [241]) of: "The mystery which was
not made known to the former generations, as it is written, he
says : According to revelation the mystery was made known to

204 THE CANON

me." That points to Eph. 33 and 5. It is not out of place to
recall again here Ignatius' exaggeration, in which in writing
to the Ephesians he declares that they were people who had
been as initiated into the mysteries, companions of Paul : " Who
makes mention of you in Christ Jesus in every Epistle." The
letter to Diognetus (ch. 2) takes up the thought and in part the
words of Eph. 421'24 : " Come now, cleansing thyself from all
the considerations that held thy mind fast before, and putting
off the habit of mind which deceived thee and becoming as
from the beginning a new man, as also of a new way of thought,
as thou indeed thyself hast confessed, thou wilt be a hearer."
Polycarp writes (ch. 12) : "Only as is spoken in the Scriptures :
Be angry and sin not, and, let not the sun go down upon your
wrath," adding to the psalm Eph. 426. Barnabas (ch. 6) seems
to refer to Eph. 317 and 222 in writing : " For He was about
to appear in the flesh and to dwell in you. For my brethren
the dwelling of your heart is a temple holy to the Lord." The
Valentinians (6. 35 ; p. 284 [194]) quote Eph. 39- 10. "And the
apostle : The mystery which was not made known to the former
generations." Again (6. 34; p. 284 [193]) they quote Eph. 314-16-18 ;
"This is, they say, that which is written in the Scripture: For
the sake of this I bend my knees to God, and the Father and
the Lord of our Lord Jesus Christ, in order that God may
give you that Christ may dwell in your inward man, that is
the psychical not the bodily, that ye may be able to know what
is the depth, which is the Father of all things, and what is the
breadth, which is the Cross, the boundary of the pleroma, or
what is the length, that is the pleroma of the ages."

Theodotus (Fragm. 1 9) quotes Paul by name for Eph. 424 :
" And Paul : Put on the new man the one created according to
God." Again he writes (Fragm. 43) : " The Saviour himself
ascending and descending, and that he ascended, what is it but
that he also descended? He himself is the one going down
into the lowest parts of the earth and going up above the
heavens." That is Eph. 49-10. He quotes also (Fragm. 85)
Eph. 616: "Therefore it is necessary to be armed with the
weapons of the Lord, having the body and the soul invulnerable
with arms able to quench the darts of the devil, as the apostle
says." Finally, we have from him (Fragm. 48) Eph. 430 :
"Wherefore also the apostle saith : And grieve ye not the

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— PHILIPPIANS 205

Holy Spirit of God in which ye have been sealed." Hermas
(Sim. 9. 13) used Eph. 44: "Thus also those who believed on
the Lord through His Son and are clothed in these spirits shall
be unto one Spirit and unto one body and one colour of their
garments." In another place (Mand. 3) he touches apparently
Eph. 430 : " For thou must needs as a servant of God walk
in truth and not cause an evil conscience to dwell with the
spirit of truth, nor bring grief upon the sacred and true spirit."
Theophilus (1. 6), speaking of the Pleiades and Orion and of the
rest of the stars : " In the circle of the heavens, all of which
the much varied wisdom of God called by their own names,"
refers to the wisdom mentioned Eph. 310. This he again
alludes to (2. 16): "And on the fifth day the living creatures
came forth from the waters, by which also in these the manifold
wisdom of God is displayed." He seems to use Eph. 418 when
he writes : " And this befell thee because of the blindness of
thy soul and the hardness of thy heart."

Philippians.

As for the Epistle to the Philippians, the Sethians (5. 19;
p. 206 [143]) quote Phil. 21 saying: "This of the beast is the
form of the servant, and this is the necessity for the Son of God
to come down into the womb of the virgin." The letter to
Diognetus (ch. 5) refers to our citizenship as in Phil. 318-20;
"They spend their time on earth, but they are citizens in
heaven." Polycarp in writing to the Philippians says (ch. 3) :
" For neither I nor another like me can follow up the wisdom
of the blessed and glorified Paul, who being among you in
person before the men of that day taught accurately and
most certainly the word about truth, who also, when far from
you, wrote Epistles to you, into which if ye look, ye shall be
able to be built up in the faith given to you." That sentence
is not only of interest as a testimony to the existence of at
least one letter of Paul's to the Philippians. It tells us in so
many words something that plain common sense must have
told us long ago. We know that the Philippians were allowed
by Paul to send him money for his personal support, and that
they sent money to him repeatedly and even while he was at

206 THE CANON

Rome. Now no one could dream that Paul did not repeatedly
write to them to say that he had received their gifts, and to thank
them for these gifts. And here Polycarp tells us that Paul wrote
letters, not merely one letter, to them. The people who think
that our Epistle to the Philippians really consists of two or more
such letters combined into one have not yet convinced me that
they are right in this view. It is likely that the said letters were
short and chiefly personal, we might almost say chiefly occupied
with the business side of the matter, and that therefore they were
not saved for the general use of the Church. Again Polycarp
(ch. n) refers to the one letter of Paul to the Philippians, in
reproving a presbyter who had gone astray : " And I perceived
no such thing among you, nor heard of it, among whom the
blessed Paul laboured, who are in the beginning of his Epistle.
For he boasts of you among all the Churches, which alone then
knew God, and we did not yet know [him]."

Theodotus (Fragm. 19) quotes Phil. 21 : "Whence also he is
said to take the form of a servant, not only the flesh according
to his coming, but also the nature from the being subject, and
the nature of the servant as able to suffer and subject to
the powerful and lordly cause." Again (Fragm. 35) he alluded
apparently to the same verse : " Jesus our light, as the apostle
says, having emptied Himself," that is according to Theodotus
coming to be outside of His boundary, "since He was an angel."
The essay on the Resurrection, attached to Justin Martyr's works,
quotes (ch. 7) Phil. 320 : " We must next oppose those who
dishonour the flesh, and say that it is not worthy of the
resurrection or of the heavenly citizenship." It gives it a second
time a little later thus (ch. 9) : " As it was spoken : Our dwelling
is in heaven." Theophilus (1. 2) uses the phrase : "Proving the
things which are different" which occurs both in Rom. 218
and Phil. i10. He speaks in another passage (2. 17) in the words
of Phil. 319 : " Of some men who do not know or worship God,
and who think earthly things and do not repent." He is
evidently thinking by means of Phil. 48 when he writes (2. 36) :
"Because then these things are true and useful and just and
agreeable to all men, it is clear also that those doing ill shall
of necessity be punished according to the measure of their
deeds."

THE AGE OF IREN^US— COLOSSIANS 207

COLOSSIANS.

For the Epistle to the Colossians we have first to point
to the Peratae, who quote Col. 29 and say (5. 12 ; p. 178 [124]) :
"This is what is spoken: All the fulness" — the pleroma —
"pleased to dwell in him bodily, and all the Godhead of the
thus divided Trinity (?) is in Him." Basilides seems to touch
Col. 23 and i26*27, perhaps with Eph. 35, when he writes (7. 25 ;
p. 370 [238]): "This is the mystery which was not known to
the former generations, but he was in those times king and lord,
as it seems of all, the great prince, the Eight." Theodotus
(Fragm. 19) gives us Col. i15: "And still more clearly and
exactly in another place he [Paul] says: Who is the image of
the invisible God, then he adds : " Firstborn of all creation,"
and he proceeds to discuss the passage. In another passage
(Fragm. 43) he brings Col. i16-17 thus: "And becomes head
of all things with the Father. For all things were created in
him, seen and unseen, thrones, lordships, kingships, godheads,
services."

Justin cites Col. i15 apparently (Dial. 84): "That is that
through the virgin womb the first begotten of all creations having
been made flesh became truly a child." In another place (Dial.
85) he gives the title better : " For according to His name, this
Son of God and firstborn of all creation." Again (Dial. 125)
he gives it : " Child firstborn of all creatures," using altogether
different Greek words. But there is no question about it that he
has this passage in his mind. And still again (Dial. 138) he
writes : " For Christ being firstborn of all creation, became also
a beginning again of another race, the one born again by Him
through water and faith and wood, which has the mystery of
the cross." And once more (Dial. 100) he says of Jesus:
"Therefore He revealed to us all things as many as we have
understood from the Scriptures by His grace, we knowing that
He is firstborn of God and before all creatures, and son of the
patriarchs, since He was made flesh through the virgin from their
race." He seems to have had Col. 211- 12 in mind when he wrote
(Dial. 43) of our receiving the spiritual circumcision: "And we
received it through baptism on account of the mercy which is
from God, since we had become sinners, and it is permitted to

208 THE CANON

all to receive [it] likewise." It may be that we should see in the
Exhortation to the Greeks (ch. 15) an allusion to Col. i16 in
a discussion of an Orphic verse : " He names voice there the
Word of God by whom were made heaven and earth and the
whole creation, as the divine prophecies of the holy men teach
us, which he also in part having perceived in Egypt, knew that
all creation took place by the Word of God."

Theophilus also (2. 22), like Justin Martyr, quotes Col. i15:
"And when God wished to make what He had determined upon,
He begot this forth-proceeding Word, a firstborn of all creation,
not that He was emptied of His Word, but that He begot a
Word and converses ever with the Word." Speaking of the just
(2. 17) he uses Col. 32: "Like birds they fly upward in their
soul, thinking the things which are above and being well-pleasing
to the will of God."

First and Second Thessalonians.

First Thessalonians comes to view in Ignatius' letter (ch. 10)
to the Ephesians, where he touches 1 Thess. 517: "And for the
rest of men pray without ceasing." Polycarp brings the thought
of 1 Thess. 517 in writing to the Philippians (ch. 4) when he says of
the widows that they : " Should intercede without ceasing for all."
We gave above Dionysius of Corinth's words to the Church at
Rome in which he reverted to the thought of 1 Thess. 211,
comforting the distressed as a father his children. Polycarp
quotes directly Second Thessalonians in speaking (ch. 11) of
the erring presbyter Valentus and his wife. He writes : " Be ye
therefore also moderate (sober) in this matter, and do not regard
such people as enemies, but call them back as suffering and erring
members, so that ye may save your whole body," see 2 Thess. 315.
Justin Martyr (Dial, no) applies 2 Thess. 23,4: "Two of His
comings are announced : the one, in which He is preached as
suffering and without glory and dishonoured and crucified ; and
the second, in wrhich He will come with glory from the heavens,
when also the man of the apostasy, who also speaks lofty things
to the Most High, will dare upon the earth lawless deeds against
us the Christians."

THE AGE OF IREN.EUS— THESS., HEBREWS 209

Hebrews.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is the book of the New Testament
that comes before our eyes in such abundance in that first great
letter of the generation following upon the time of the apostles,
in Clement of Rome. Quoting Heb. i3, Clement writes (ch. 36) :
"Through this one" — Christ — "the Master wished that we
should taste of the undying wisdom, who being the reflection of
His greatness, is so much greater than the angels, as He inherited
a more excellent name [than they]." Yet the quotation is a very
free one. We know that nothing else is to be looked for. Im-
mediately afterwards he gives the Old Testament quotations found
in Heb. i5 and 7 and 13, and we must presuppose that he takes
them from that Epistle and not directly from the given psalms.
See how freely Clement (ch. 17) quotes Heb. n37: "Let us
become imitators also of those who walked about in goatskins
and sheepskins heralding the coming of Christ." Hermas (Vis.
2. 3) touches Heb. 312 : " But the not departing from the living
God saves thee, and thy simplicity and much temperance."

Justin Martyr shows that he knows this Epistle, and that 31,
by the way in which he in his Apology calls Jesus an apostle,
for He is only called so in that verse. In one passage (ch. 12)
Justin writes : " For He foretold that all these things should
come to pass, I say, being our teacher and the son and apostle
of the Father of all and ruler God, Jesus Christ, from whom also
we have our being named Christians." In another passage
(ch. 63) he says : " And the Word of God is His Son, as we
said before. And He is called angel and apostle. For He
Himself announces whatever needs be known, and is sent pro-
claiming whatever is declared, as also our Lord Himself said :
He that heareth Me heareth Him that sent Me." Theophilus
(2. 25) refers to Heb. 512, which we saw that Pinytus the bishop
of Cnossus on Crete used in writing to the Bishop Dionysius of
Corinth. Theophilus says : " For also now when a child has
been born it cannot at once eat bread, but is brought up at first
on milk, then with advancing years it comes also to solid food."
He applies that then to Adam. Only a few lines farther on he
gives us Heb. 129: "And if it be necessary that children be sub-
ject to their parents, how much more to the God and Father of all."
14

2IO THE CANON

First and Second Timothy.

Clement of Rome knows First Timothy. He touches i Tim.
2s and 54 in writing (ch. 7) : "And let us see what is good and
what is pleasing and what is acceptable before Him that made
us." Polycarp (ch. 4) quotes 1 Tim. 610 and 7 : " And the
beginning of all ills is the love of money. Knowing then that
we brought nothing into the world, but neither have we any-
thing to take out [of it]." But we see how freely he quotes from
memory. We could imagine that Basilides (7. 22 ; p. 360 [232])
was guided in his words : " Increasing them by addition, espe-
cially at the necessary times," by 1 Tim. 26, since, although he says
" necessary times," he uses for " especially " the word attached by
Paul to " times." The letter to Diognetus (ch. 4) reminds us of
1 Tim. 316 : " Do not think that you can learn from men the
mystery of their especial godliness." Barnabas quotes (ch. 12)
from the same verse : " Behold again Jesus, not a son of man
but a son of God, and by a type revealed in flesh." The essay
on the Resurrection (ch. 8) touches 1 Tim. 24 : " Or do they think
that God is envious? But He is good, and wishes all to be
saved." Athenagoras closes his apology (ch. 37) to Marcus
Aurelius and Commodus most fitly by quoting 1 Tim. 22: "And
this is what suits us, that we may pass a calm and quiet life,
and we ourselves will obey eagerly all that is commanded." In
another place (ch. 16) he uses two words from 1 Tim. 616 : "For
God Himself is all things to Himself, light unapproachable, a
perfect world, spirit, power, word." We saw above that Theo-
philus quoted 1 Tim. 22. Barnabas quotes (ch. 7)2 Tim. 41 :
"The Son of God being Lord, and going to judge living and
dead." Heracleon (CI. Al. Strom. 4. 9. 72) quotes 2 Tim. 213
in his most exact discussion of denial : " On which account. He
can never deny Himself."

Titus.

Titus is quoted by Clement of Rome (ch. 2) : " Be not ready
to repent of any kind deed, ready to every good work," Titus 31.
Perhaps he afterwards thinks of Titus 214 in writing (ch. 64) : " Who
chose our Lord Jesus Christ and us by Him to be a peculiar

THE AGE OF IREN^US— TIM., TIT., REVELATION 211

people." As for Tatian, we have direct testimony from Jerome
that he insisted upon the genuineness of Titus. Perhaps Titus
212 guides Theophilus in writing of God (3. 9) : " Who also
teaches us to act justly and to be pious and to do good." In
another passage (2. 16) he takes God's blessing the beasts from
the waters on the fifth day as a sign that : " Men were about to
receive repentance and remission of sins through water and bath
of the new birth, those approaching in truth and born anew and
receiving blessing from God," Titus 35.

Philemon.

Of course, we cannot look for many references to the tiny
letter to Philemon. There is, however, a curious likeness, even
in some of the words used, between a paragraph in Ignatius'
letter to the Ephesians (ch. 2) and the letter to Philemon (7- 20).

Revelation.

We have reached the last book, the book of Revelation. The
strange fate of this book must be dealt with again. Here .we
have at first to recall what was above said as to the way in which
it was connected with Cerinthus. Cerinthus would, so far as we
can see, have written an entirely different book, and it is even
probable that he wrote one or more books in imitation of this book.
Nevertheless it was conjectured in the third century that he was
the author of it itself. This was early criticism. But it was too
late to be informed. Perhaps the Ophites drew from Rev. 224.
Hippolytus (5. 6; p. 132 [94]) says of them: "After this they
called themselves Gnostics, saying that they alone knew the
depths." I am not inclined to think that they got the words
from this passage. It would in the same way be possible to
connect the twenty-four angels of Justin the Gnostic with Rev. 44,
and the twenty-four elders. Justin the Gnostic says (Hipp. 5. 26 ;
pp. 218, 220 [151]): "Of these four-and-twenty angels the
fatherly ones accompany the Father and do all things according
to His will, and the motherly ones the mother Eden. And the
multitude of all these angels together is paradise."

212 THE CANON

Hermas describes the Church (Vis. 4. 2) in words drawn from
Rev. 212: "After the beast had passed me and had gone on
about thirty feet, behold a virgin met me adorned as going out
from the bridal chamber." He often uses the thoughts and the
words of Revelation. The Marcosians, speaking of the descent
of the dove at the baptism of Jesus, say (Iren. 1. 14. 6) : " Which
is Omega and Alpha." In another place (1. 15. 1) they again
insist upon the connection of the number of the dove with Alpha
and Omega. The Greek letters of the word for dove count up
to eight hundred and one, and that is the numerical value of
Alpha and Omega. They probably drew the two letters from
Rev. i8. We observed above that Justin Martyr named John
as the author of Revelation. He quotes Rev. 202 as follows in
his Apology (ch. 28) : " For with us the chief of the evil demons
is called serpent and Satan and devil, as also you can learn,
searching out of our writings." Eusebius tells us that Theo-
philus quoted from Revelation. Irenaeus (5. 35. 2) quotes
Rev. 2015 : " And if anyone, it says, is not found written in the
Book of Life, he is sent into the lake of fire." He adds then
2 11'4. Just before he names John as author of the Revelation,
and quotes three other passages.

We have approached the end of the second century and we
stand at the year 190, or between 190 and 200. We have seen
that, with varying exactness or with varying freedom and looseness,
the writers of these early years of Christianity have shown that
they knew and treasured many of the books of the New
Testament. We have already by thoroughly unimpeachable
witnesses shown that the greater part of the books of the New
Testament are at this time in general use in the Church, and that
the use made of them assigns to them a special value. Not only
the writers who are in positions of authority in many of the
scattered societies of the regular Christians, but also a number
of those who are leaders in groups of Christians, who for different
reasons have separated themselves from or have been declared
foreign to the usual, general line of churches and Christians, have
shown by the way in which they name, or allude to, or copy as
models, or quote these books, that they consider them as of a
peculiar as of the highest religious authority. In so far as anyone
may be inclined to lay stress upon the fact that the quotations
are often loose, and may wish to draw7 the conclusion that the

THE AGE OF IREN^EUS— READING IN CHURCH 21 3

books were not highly valued, it is pertinent to point out that we
have found a like looseness also in quotations from the books of
the Old Testament, the normative value of which was supposed
to be certainly fixed.

We saw some distance back that the first books used in the
Christian churches for public reading were the books of the
Old Testament, and that these alone could lay claim to be read
as of divine authority, as writings that speak from God to man.
The question now arises for us, whether we can at this point
discover any change in the books read in church, whether we
can detect any change in the way in which given books are
read. At the earlier period the liturgical division : God to Man,
contained only these books of the Old Testament, and it was
even a question whether all of them were really firmly settled as
authoritative. The books of the New Testament at that time
were read in the division, the liturgical division : Man to Man,
had the same right to be read as a sermon, a letter by a bishop,
or any instructive Christian treatise. No one thought of them
as standing on a line with the books of the Old Testament, which
claimed an unimpeachable divine authority. It is above all clear
that we have nowhere during the course of our investigations
seen any tokens of an official declaration touching the public
reading. But it is also clear from the slight hints here and there
as to the reading of books, and from the now distinct attachment
to the books of the New Testament of the words " it is written,"
"it is spoken," or "scripture," that these books are looked upon
as fully equal to those of the Old Testament. Going back to the
beginning, we must, if I am not mistaken, conceive of the process
in the following way, not forgetting that we are reasoning from
common sense and not drawing from documents, but also insisting
upon it that the documents say nothing which makes this view of
the process impossible or even improbable.

The churches which received the Epistles of Paul read these
Epistles in their gatherings, ever and again as part of the division :
Man to Man. The supposition that they read such Epistles but
once or at most two or three times is manifestly absurd. It is
absurd because of the importance of the Epistles, the lack of much
other matter, and the need of material for the weekly or even
more frequent services. And it is absurd from the view of the
documents. For if the letter of Clement of Rome was repeatedly

214 THE CANON

read at Corinth, and was read in other churches as well, of course
as : Man to Man, much more will the letters of Paul to the
Corinthians and to other churches have been repeatedly read before
the assembled Christians. Precisely how often they were read
and re-read cannot be determined. We have no reason to sup-
pose that at the first any rule was made as to this point.

It may be observed here in a parenthesis that the Old Testa-
ment was probably read originally in the Christian assemblies
about in the same way as in the synagogues. That is the only
reasonable supposition. The earliest Christians were largely Jews,
and may even often have continued to visit synagogues after
becoming Christians. They were used to reading given books at
given times in given quantities, and the natural impulse will have
been still to do the same. Moreover, it is likely that this habit, the
habit of reading the Old Testament as the Jews did, passed over
to such Christian communities, where there were such, which
were entirely of heathen birth. The given thing was to do as the
others did. The apostles and preachers who brought the Gospel
to them will certainly have proceeded according to their custom,
and have handed down this custom to the newly planted
churches.

To return to our main topic, the division God to Man con-
tained the Old Testament. The division Man to Man contained
a verbal proclamation of the Gospel. This may have been by a
passing apostle — a wandering preacher, but must in the larger
number of cases have been by a man from the given church.
In very many cases this last, merely local preacher will have had
little to say, or there will even have been no one in the church
who could pretend to speak to the rest. Here a letter from an
apostle like Paul will have often been used, as soon as the church
could get possession of one. So soon, however, as the Gospels
were written, these accounts of the words and deeds of Jesus
must have been eagerly welcomed in such smaller communities
as were unable to find regular speakers for their meetings, and as
were able to buy a Gospel. This Gospel will then have been read,
as the Epistles of Paul were read, in the part : Man to Man. It
will have replaced or been used as a substitute for the not avail-
able wandering preacher who brought word of Jesus. This is the
first stage of the public use of the books of the New Testament,
to which we called attention above.

THE AGE OF IREN^US— READING IN CHURCH 21 5

The number of churches increased rapidly, and the size of
the churches in the great centres grew. The consequence was
that the number of apostles, of wandering preachers, was no
longer in a position to supply the calls for their services. And,
since we have no reason to suppose that a large succession of
such wandering preachers — much as Eusebius presses the
missionary spirit at the time of Pantsenus— , such missionaries,
continued and enlarged their sphere, these preachers will have
become more and more rare. Thus the demand increased,
whereas the supply diminished. This forced the Christian
communities to lay more stress upon the written Gospel, to
secure for themselves in some measure words of Jesus and
words of the apostles to fill up the part of the church services
denoted as Man to Man. The intense interest attaching to
this newer literature, and the wish to have variety in it and to
possess it in all its fulness, will have led to the interchange of
books between the churches, to the sending of copies of books
to churches that did not own any or precisely the given books.
With the increase in the amount of this newer literature its
peculiar value began to dawn upon the Christian mind.

What the Christians wished to know of, to hear of, to discuss,
was not the Messiah of the Old Testament who was in the Old
Testament future, but the Jesus of the New Testament who
had already come, and the Christ who was still and soon to
return to earth and to them who belonged to Him. Therefore
the reading of the new books demanded and secured more and
more attention, and this reading assumed in the weekly services
a more and more important position. This was, I take it, an
absolute necessity, and need not in the least be placed in
connection with thoughts of a violent opposition to or of a
dislike to Judaism and a consequent turning away from the
Jewish books. From the middle of the second century onwards
Judaism loses its weight as an opponent of Christianity, in so
far as it had not lost it immediately after the destruction of
Jerusalem. Justin Martyr's discussion with Trypho may be
taken as a combination of his and that Jew's philosophical and
rabbinical disposition to debate upon the questions common
to them, or as a treatise due from the Greek Neapolitan to his
Hebrew countrymen, or as a first Christology of the Old
Testament with the vivid background offered by Trypho and

216 THE CANON

his friends, but not as a sign that at that day the relations of
Christianity to Judaism as such filled an extremely large space
in Christian thought and life.

All in all it seems to me to be likely that before the middle
of the second century the books of the New Testament in
general, and I may name the four Gospels and the Epistles of
Paul in particular, had passed over from the liturgical division
Man to Man into the division God to Man. That in some places
doubts should have arisen as to whether one book or another
belonged within or without the peculiarly sacred books was not
strange. It was the less strange because even then some of the
books of the Old Testament were scarcely fixed in their position
of strictly normative value.

A single suggestion is here in place. It is constantly argued,
from the presence of other than New Testament books in the
Sinaitic, the Vatican, and the Alexandrian manuscripts of the
Greek Bible, that the said books were at the places at which
those manuscripts were written regarded as fully equal to the
books of the New Testament. It seems to me to be a question
whether at that early date this conclusion is valid. As regards
the Sinaitic and the Vatican manuscripts, I think it likely that
they are among the earliest leaf-books and among the earliest
complete Bibles, among the earliest books which brought together
the many rolls which till then had contained the Scriptures.
Under these circumstances I think it possible that the other
books were added to the books of the New Testament for con-
venience in use in the church services, without an intention on
the part of those who inserted them in the manuscript to say that
they were divine Scripture. This is, I think, possible. But it is
necessary to insist upon the point urged above, that uncertainties
and doubts as to various books are under such circumstances
thoroughly natural and to be looked for.

It should at this place be observed, that the number of
books that were written up to this time was not very great, but
it is still more important to emphasise the fact that so few of
those written have been preserved to us. Had we more books,
even heretical ones, we should have more testimony.

It is clear that the question as to the existence of a New
Testament book is not to be confounded with the question as
to its general acceptance and authoritative valuation. The three

THE AGE OF IREN/EUS— READING IN CHURCH 21?

synoptic Gospels found their way gradually into general use.
The Gospel of John must have found immediate acceptance.
The book of Acts was unquestionably in existence at an early
date, but may not have become generally used before the
middle of the second century. First Peter gradually found
acceptance. First John doubtless accompanied, or followed
close upon the heels of, the Gospel. The other Catholic Epistles
we have still to deal with. The Epistles of Paul found severally
and locally immediate acceptance, and probably at a very early
date general spread and acceptance. The Epistle to the
Hebrews is, as we have seen, testified to before the close of the
first century, yet it found, as we shall see, difficulty in some
quarters at a later time. The book of Revelation was curiously
enough generally accepted at an early date, but fell afterwards
into discredit in some districts, and will therefore again attract
our attention.

The last point that we need to allude to is the important
fact that up to this time, up to the time of Irenseus, up about
to the close of the second century, we have not found the least
sign of anything like an official declaration as to the canonicity
of any one book or of a number of the books of the New
Testament.

Leaving this period, we advance to a new one in which we
no longer have to search with a lantern for signs of the presence
and use of the books of the New Testament in general. Our
eyes will now be directed to three things. We shall seek for
signs, first, of a certain and sure act making the books of the
New Testament canonical ; and secondly, of the use and apprecia-
tion of seven books that have thus far failed to attain such
general recognition as the rest; and thirdly, of the use and
appreciation of other books, be they totally apocryphal or be
they nearly equivalent to the acknowledged books.

218

IV.

THE AGE OF O RIG EM

200-300.

In passing from the second to the third century we enter into a
totally new scene. The landscape, the persons, the movements
in the new age are of an entirely different character from those
in the period left behind. Between Clement of Rome in the
year 95, and Irenseus in the year, say, 185, in Lyons, we had to
flit about from Antioch to Smyrna, from Nabulus to Ephesus,
from Philippi to Rome, and to Lyons. And no orthodox or
regular writer was with certainty to be fixed in Africa. Now we
have in the main to do with Africa alone, although we may
make some excursions into other lands. The persons who
attracted our attention during the second century were out of
very different lands, but all of them wrote Greek. The five men
whom we have to discuss during the third century are all of
them, at least by residence if not by birth, Africans, and two
of them are Latin writers. The men treated of before were of
varied occupations, though largely officials of a more or less
definite standing in various churches. Justin Martyr wore the
robe of a philosopher. Hegesippus was a traveller. Turning
to the third century, we have to do with three professors of
theology, with one lawyer, and with a single bishop. And the
movements that occur are of another description. Those schools
of Gnostics find no rival in the new period. No heretic arises
to outdo Marcion. No one vies with Tatian in harmonising and
condensing the four Gospels into one.

Our aim now is to be on the watch for signs of any action
canonising books, to examine most closely all that pertains to

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 219

the use and the Church standing of the seven books, — James,
Second Peter, Second and Third John, Jude, Hebrews, and
Revelation, — and to mark what books approach in use and
valuation the books of the New Testament, and how they are
treated. The first of these three points calls for no recapitula-
tion. As to the second, we found already for James a possible
testimony in Clement of Rome, a sure one in Hermas, and a
probable one in the Old-Syrian translation, — for Second Peter
no particle of testimony, — for Second and Third John the testi-
mony of the fragment of Muratori, — for Jude also Muratori, —
for Hebrews the abundant testimony of Clement of Rome, and
that of Justin Martyr, of Pinytus, bishop of Cnossus on Crete,
and of Theophilus of Antioch, — and for Revelation the testi-
mony of Hermas, of the Marcosians, and of Theophilus and
Irenseus, possibly of Papias and Melito ; while Justin Martyr
expressly names John as its author. The recapitulation for the
third point we leave until the close of this period, where we shall
sum up all that needs to be said of these companions to the
books of the New Testament, and of their fate in the Church
from the beginning until to-day.

If we only knew more of Pantaenus we should probably have
to place him at the head of the line of scholars in this age.
He was towards the close of the second century the teacher,
the director, of the theological school in Alexandria, and had,
it is likely, before taking charge of the school, gone as a
missionary to the East, reaching India and finding that the
Apostle Bartholomew had preceded him there, and had left
behind him the Gospel according to Matthew in Hebrew. His
pupil Clement succeeded him in the school. The school has
been supposed by some to date from the time of Mark's stay
in Alexandria. We have not any reliable ground for that state-
ment, yet it is quite possible that Pantaenus had known disciples
of the apostles.

Clement, to whom we now have to turn, tells us of his
own teachers, including Pantaenus, and shows us that the
frequency and the extent of the intercourse among the
churches and Christians of his day was no less than that
which we have become acquainted with during the previous
period. It is at the beginning of his great work called the
Carpets. He writes of this work : " And now this affair is not

220 THE CANON

a book artistically composed for show, but it treasures up
memories for me for old age, an antidote for forgetfulness, an
image without art, and a picture of those real and soulful saintly
men, and truly worthy of praise, whose words I had the honour
of hearing. Of these one was in Greece, the Ionian, and one
in Great Greece (Southern Italy), another of them was from
Ccele-Syria, and one from Egypt, and others throughout the
East, where one was from the Assyrians, one in Palestine by
origin a Hebrew, and meeting the last one — this one was in
power the first — I stopped, having hunted after hidden things in
Egypt. The bee, in reality Sicilian, harvesting the flowers both
of the prophetic and of the apostolic meadow, implanting a
true thing of knowledge in the souls of his hearers. But they
preserving the pure tradition of the blessed teaching directly
both from Peter and James, both from John and Paul of the
holy apostles, son receiving it from father — but few were those
like unto the fathers — came then with God also to us sowing
those ancestral and apostolical seeds." It is a pity that Clement
did not name his teachers. Nevertheless the testimony for the
wide acquaintance of Clement with scholars from all parts of the
empire, and for the frequent communication between distant
countries, remains.

The information that we wish for from Clement we get
through Eusebius, who describes Clement's work, named
Sketches, as follows (H. E. 6. 14): "And in the Sketches,
speaking briefly, he makes short comments on all the testa-
ment-ed Scripture," — on all the books in the two Testaments,
one would think, seeing that he treated at least of some Old
Testament books, — " not passing by the books that are spoken
against, I mean the Epistle of Jude and the rest of the Catholic
Epistles, and both Barnabas and the Revelation called Peter's.
And he says that the Epistle to the Hebrews is Paul's, and was
written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew tongue ; and that Luke,
having translated it carefully, published it for the Greeks, for
which reason the same colouring is found in the translation of
this Epistle as in the Acts. And that the usual, Paul the
Apostle, was not written at the beginning of the letter, probably,
he says, because, writing to the Hebrews, who had taken a
prejudice to him, and suspected him, he, with thorough prudence,
did not at the outset rebuff them by putting in his name.

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 221

Then he (Clement) adds farther on : " And as even the blessed
presbyter " — he seems to mean Pantaenus — " said, since the
Lord, being the Apostle of the Almighty, was sent to the
Hebrews, in his modesty Paul, as sent to the Gentiles, does not
write himself down as apostle of the Hebrews, not only because
of the honour due to the Lord, but also because of its being
a superfluous thing to write also to the Hebrews, seeing that
he was a preacher and apostle of the Gentiles."

Photius refers to the Sketches, and says (Cod. 109): "Their
whole purpose is, as it were, explanations of Genesis, of Exodus,
of the Psalms, of the Epistles, of the divine Paul, and of the
Catholic [Epistles], and of Ecclesiastes." As Clement only
commented on four of the Catholic Epistles, leaving out James
and Third John, Photius is merely speaking generally in naming
the Catholic Epistles without any limitation. In the sixth century
Cassiodorius of Calabria, prime minister of Theodoric's, and
others, and then founder of a monastery in Bruttia (Calabria),
wrote a general theological handbook for his monks, in which
he says (de inst. 8) : " In the canonical " — that is for us the
Catholic — " Epistles, moreover, Clement, an Alexandrian pres-
byter, who is also called the Carpet-er," — from that book the
high-coloured Carpets, — " explained in Attic language the First
Epistle of Saint Peter, the First and Second of Saint John, and
James," — but James is a mistake, probably of some copyist ; it
must read Jude. Then Cassiodorius translated some of these
comments, including some on Jude, none on James.

It is perhaps enough when we say that Clement commented
on these four Epistles, but we may add the following quotations
for the sake of being sure. It is not strange that we find no
quotation from the short Second John. That Clement fails
to mention Third John may be because he did not know
of its existence, although he might have thought it scarcely
worth mentioning because of its shortness and of its similarity
in some phrases to Second John. As for Jude, however,
Clement refers to the verses 8 to 16 thus (Strom. 3. 2. 11):
"About these, I think, and the like heresies Jude spoke
prophetically in his Epistle : ' Nevertheless, these also likewise
dreaming — for waking they atta< k the truth — as far as : And
their mouth utters swelled-up things.'" Now it may be that
Clement wrote that just so, with " as far as " instead of giving all

222 THE CANON

the verses. But it is possible that a lazy copyist put in " as far
as " and left the verses out. In either case it is a large quotation,
and fixes Clement's use of Jude, which he quotes several times
besides. Clement often quotes Hebrews. It is enough to
mention one passage. He gives us Heb. 611*20, precisely in the
same way as those verses in Jude (2. 22. 136) : "And we desire
that each one of you show the same zeal unto the fulness of
hope, until : Being a high priest to eternity, according to the
order of Melchisedek." Out of the several quotations from
Revelation I take this free one (5. 6. 35) : " And they say that
the seven eyes of the Lord are seven spirits resting upon the
staff flowering up out of the root of Jesse." That is an odd
confusion of memory for Rev. 56. However, we have gotten
from Clement of Alexandria clear testimony to Second John,
Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation ; but nothing for James, Second
Peter, or Third John.

From Alexandria we now pass towards the west, and we
find at Carthage the lawyer Tertullian. He is not a petty
advocate, but a man of note and influence, one whose business
may call him to Rome. He is a lawyer, but a Christian.
He is not half a Christian, but a whole one. He may write
sometimes a not very polished Latin, but he knows how to
put life and fire into the words. He burns and it burns within
us. We must quote a section from his work against Marcion
in which he shows himself a believer in tradition. And when
we reflect how short the course of tradition from the apostles to
him was, his words have great weight for us. He writes (4. 5) :
" In short, if it be agreed that that is truer which is earlier,
that earlier, which is even from the beginning, that from the
beginning which is from the apostles, it will also likewise surely
be agreed that that was handed down from the apostles which
has been sacredly preserved among the churches of the apostles.
Let us see what milk the Corinthians drank from Paul, according
to what rule the Galatians were reproved, what the Philippians,
the Thessalonians, the Ephesians read, what also the Romans
from our neighbourhood proclaim, to whom both Peter and
Paul left the Gospel and that sealed by their blood. We have
also churches cherished by John. For although Marcion rejects
his Revelation, yet the series of bishops traced to its source
will rest upon John as their founder. Thus also the high birth

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— TERTULLIAN 223

of the rest is recognised. And therefore I say that among them,
and not only among the apostolic churches but also among
all the churches which are confederated with them in the
fellowship of the oath (sacrament), that Gospel of Luke which
we defend with all our might stands fast from the moment it
was published, but Marcion's [Luke] is unknown to the most,
known, moreover, to none without being at once condemned."

We have then to ask, what this Tertullian thinks of our seven
books. Four of them : James, Second Peter, Second and Third
John, he does not appear to know at all. It might merely be
questioned as to the two last, whether he simply passed them
by as short and without thinking that they were not genuine.
The ease with which they might have been, may have been
overlooked will be clear from the case of Jude. Jude he
mentions by name as apostolic. Now, interestingly enough,
he mentions it (de cultu fern. 1. 3) at the close of a discussion
of the canonicity of the book of Enoch. He suggests that the
Jews may have refused Enoch a place in their closet because
it spoke of Christ, and agrees that it is no wonder that they
reject a book that spoke of Him, seeing that they did not
receive Him speaking before them. He concludes : " To this
comes the fact that Enoch possesses testimony in the Apostle
Jude." Just nine words give us his view of Jude. The sen-
tence is a mere trifle. As men say : he happens to add the
thought. And were it not for this trifle we should know
nothing of his valuation of Jude. How easily, then, Second
and Third John may have escaped his pen. How about the
two other books ? Tertullian is perfectly well acquainted with
the Epistle to the Hebrews, but he only quotes it once.
He writes (de pud. 20) : " Nevertheless I wish in a redundant
way to adduce also the testimony of a certain companion of
the apostles, fit to confirm of next right the discipline of the
masters. For there exists also a writing of Barnabas to the
Hebrews, a man sufficiently authorised by God, whom Paul
placed beside himself in the matter of abstinence : Or have
I alone and Barnabas no right to work. And would that the
letter of Barnabas were rather received among the churches than
that apocryphal Shepherd of the adulterers. And so admonishing
£he disciples, leaving all beginnings behind to stretch forward
rather to perfection nor again to lay the foundations of re-

224 THE CANON

pentance from the works of the dead. For it is impossible,
he says, that those who have once been enlightened and have
tasted the heavenly gift," . . . and he continues the quotation
to the end of the eighth verse.

For myself I accept Tertullian's opinion as to the authorship
of Hebrews. But the interesting thing is, that he does not accept
it as equal to the mass of the books of the New Testament. For
him it is not New Testament at all. It is as he says, like a
lawyer, a title, it is an enunciation, a letter, a book, and it is
quite a respectable book, but it is not scripture. It was not
written by a Twelve- Apostle and not by Paul, and not by a brother
of Jesus. It is better than Hermas. On that point he has a
definite opinion. But it is not apostolic. I accept Tertullian's
author, but I put the book fairly into the New Testament, as he
did not. One book remains : Tertullian is thoroughly convinced
that the Revelation was written by the Apostle John, and he
refers to it constantly as an authoritative book. He writes : " For
also the Revelation of John," " For also the Apostle John in
the Revelation," "Also in the Revelation of John," quoting
verse after verse. For Tertullian and for Carthage we have thus
testimony touching Jude and Revelation, and testimony of a
second-class intention for Hebrews.

We return now to Alexandria and to the old theological
school, and to Clement's pupil and successor the giant Origen.
He personifies the intercourse between distant churches and
the intense eagerness of what may with justice be called
scientific theological research in the Church of his day. Origen
knew not merely Alexandria, but as well Rome and Antioch
and Arabia and Athens and Caesarea. His testimony has for us
a high value. He was an exegete. He knew the books of the
Bible. Eusebius tells us (H. E. 6. 25) that: "Also in the fifth
book of the commentaries upon the [Gospel] according to John,
the same [Origen] says this about the Epistles of the Apostles :
Now he who was enabled to become a servant of the new
covenant, not of letter but of spirit, Paul, who caused the Gospel
to abound from Jerusalem and around as far as Illyria, not only
did not write to all the churches which he taught, but also sent
[but] a few lines to those to which he wrote. And Peter, upon
whom the Church of Christ is built, against which hell's gates
shall not prevail, left behind him one Epistle that is acknow-

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— ORIGEN 225

ledged, possibly a second, for it is called in question. What need
to speak of the one reclining on Jesus' breast, John, who left
behind him one Gospel, confessing that he could make so many
that not even the world could contain them? And he wrote
also the Revelation, having been commanded to be silent and
not to write the voices of the seven thunders. And he left
behind also an Epistle of altogether few lines. It may be also
a second and a third. Since all do not say that these are
genuine. But both are not of a hundred lines."

In his homilies on Joshua (7. 1), which unfortunately are only
preserved in a translation, Origen takes fire at the sound of the
priestly trumpets moving around the walls of Jericho at the com-
mand of that earlier Jesus : " But our Lord Jesus Christ coming,
whose advent that former son of Nun pointed out, sends as priests
His apostles bearing well-drawn trumpets, the magnificent and
heavenly doctrine of preaching. First Matthew sounded with
priestly trumpet in his Gospel. Mark also, and Luke, and John
sang each with their priestly trumpets. Peter also sounds with
the two" — one reading says: from the three — trumpets of
his Epistles. James also and Jude. None the less does John
also here still further sing with the trumpets by his Epistles
and the Revelation, and Luke describing the deeds of the
apostles. Latest of all, moreover, that one coming who said :
I think, moreover, that God makes a show of us newest apostles,
and thundering with the fourteen trumpets of his Epistles he
threw down to the very foundations the walls of Jericho and
all the contrivances of idolatry, and the dogmas of the
philosophers." We may remain in doubt at this, whether he
himself wrote " fourteen " Epistles for Paul, calling Hebrews
his, or whether the translator changed thirteen to fourteen.
In his homilies (13. 2) on Genesis he calls the apostles the sons,
the servants, the boys of Isaac: "Therefore Isaac also digs
new wells, rather the sons of Isaac dig. The sons of Isaac are
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His sons are Peter, James,
and Jude. His son is also the Apostle Paul. Who all dig
the wells of the New Testament. But for these" — for the
possession of these new wells — " contend those who like
earthly things, nor suffer new things to be instituted nor old
ones to be cleaned. They oppose the Gospel wells. They
war against the apostolical wells."

15

226 THE CANON

Hebrews he discusses at length. He quotes it more than
two hundred times, sometimes saying : The Apostle, or the
Epistle to the Hebrews, or Paul, or Paul in the Epistle te
the Hebrews. He wrote homilies on it after the year 245,
and in these homilies he gives us the following judicious ac-
count of the Epistle, which Eusebius (H. E. 6. 25) has saved
for us : " About the Epistle to the Hebrews he presents these
words in his homilies on it : Everyone who understands how
to distinguish the difference of phrases would agree that the
character of the style of the Epistle entitled as that to the
Hebrews has not in its wording the peculiarities of the apostle,
who confessed that he was an unlearned man in speech, that
is in the phrasing, but that the Epistle is more thoroughly Greek
in the composition of the wording. And again, moreover, that
the thoughts of the Epistle are wonderful and are not inferior
to those of the writings that are acknowledged to be apostolical,
and this every one giving heed to the reading which is apostolical
would say with me to be true. After other things he adds
to this, saying : Speaking freely, I should say that the thoughts
were of the apostle, but the wording and the composition
were of some one drawing the apostolical things from his
memory, and as it were of one who wrote notes upon what
had been spoken by the teacher. If then any church holds
this Epistle as Paul's, let it be content with this thought. For
the men of old did not in vain hand it down as Paul's. But
who wrote the Epistle, the truth God knows. The account has
come to us of some who say that Clement who became Bishop of
Rome wrote the Epistle, and of others [who say] that Luke, the
one who wrote the Gospel and the Acts, [wrote it]."

In his commentary on the Psalms (Ps. 30) we read a reference
to James as a proof that the word spirit is applied by Scripture
sometimes to the soul, the psyche : " As in James : And as the
body without the spirit is dead," James 226. In another place, in
his commentary on John (vol. 20. 10), he speaks as though some
would not take what James said for authoritative : " This would
not be conceded by those who receive the saying. Faith without
works is dead," James 220. But the weight of the words " who
receive" as a questioning of the authority of the Epistle is
diminished by the fact that Origen immediately continues : " Or
of those hearing/' and quotes Romans It is further interesting

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— ORIGEN AND DIONYSIUS 227

to see that he does not use the reading "vain" or "ineffective,"
but draws the word "dead" from v.17. In the same com-
mentary on John, a little earlier (vol. 19. 23 [6]), he calls it a
letter that is in circulation, as if it were not a genuine letter :
" And if faith is alleged, but chance to be without works, such is
dead, as we have read in the current Epistle of James." It is
further to be observed that in his commentary on Matthew,
when he speaks at length of the brothers of Jesus, he mentions
James, but says nothing of his Epistle.

As for Jude, we may begin precisely at that point. In that
commentary on Matthew (vol. 10. 17) he says: "And Jude
wrote a letter but of few lines, yet filled with hearty (or strong)
words of heavenly grace, who spoke in the preface : Jude a '
servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James." At a later
point (vol. 17. 30) the phrase used for Jude is less definite:
And if anyone should also bring in the letter of Jude, let
him see what follows the word because of the saying : And
the angels, those not keeping their first estate but leaving
their own dwelling, he has kept in lasting bonds under darkness
unto the judgment of the great day." We have already given
above his unqualified allusion both to James and Jude in his
general statements, and as well a qualified and an unqualified
one to Second Peter ; the lack of qualification may in the latter
case be due to the translator. In the case of the Epistles of
John the mere plural would not distinguish between two or
three Epistles, but we may keep to three because he mentions
them in the first general statement. The book of Revelation
we have found in the general summings-up, and we may add
a single quotation from among many (on John, vol. 1. 14) :
" Therefore John the son of Zebedee says in the Revelation :
And I saw an angel flying in mid-heaven," Rev. 146, and he
quotes to the end of v.7. We have, then, from Origen
firm testimony for Jude, Hebrews, and the Revelation, and
wavering testimony for James, Second Peter, and Second and
Third John.

His pupil, Origen's pupil, Dionysius of Alexandria, took
charge of the school there probably about the year 231, became
Bishop of Alexandria about the year 247, and died about 265.
He was twice banished. He was a live man, just such a one as
the best pupil of Origen could be expected to make, and he was

228 THE CANON

in constant intercourse with Rome, of course with Csesarea, and
with Asia Minor. He wrote a vigorous but short letter to
Novatus to leave the church at Rome in peace and save his soul.
Indeed, he reminds us with his letters of his less gifted namesake
Dionysius of Corinth nearly a century earlier. He wrote not
merely to the Egyptians, and, when banished, to his Alexandrian
sheep, but also to Origen and to Laodicea, where Thelymidres was
bishop, and to Armenia, where Meroudsanes was bishop, and to
Cornelius, Bishop of Rome. He was called upon by Elenus, the
Bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, and the rest of those with him, by
Firmilian in Cappadocia, and Theoctistus in Palestine to stand
up against the followers of Novatus at the synod of Antioch.
But that is enough to show his influence.

The following paragraph from a letter of Dionysius' shows
his view of the harmonious state of the Church in general, the
persecutions having ceased and the Churches having given up
their love for Novatus (Eus. H. E. 7. 5) : " And now, brother,
know that all the Churches throughout the East and still beyond,
that were torn apart, are united. And all the leaders everywhere
are of one mind, rejoicing exceedingly at the peace which has
come against expectation, — Demetrianos in Antioch, Theoctistus
in Caesarea, Madzabanes in Aelia, Marinus in Tyre, Alexander
having fallen asleep, Heliodorus in Laodicea. Thelymidres
having gone to his rest, Elenus in Tarsus and all the churches
of Cilicia, Firmilianus and all Cappadocia. For I have named
only the more illustrious of the bishops, lest I should add length
to the letter or undue heaviness to the discourse. Neverthe-
less all the Syrias and Arabia, to each of which ye give aid and
to which ye now wrote, and Mesopotamia, both Pontus and
Bithynia, and to speak briefly all everywhere rejoice in oneness
of mind and in brotherly love, glorifying God."

Dionysius quotes the Epistle of James (Galland, vol. 14.
App. p. 1 1 7 E) : " For God, he says, is not tempted by evils."
He also refers (Eus. H. E. 6. 41) to Hebrews as written by
Paul : " And the brethren turned aside and gave place (to their
persecutors), and they received with joy, like those to whom also
Paul bore witness, the plundering of their goods," Hebrews io34.
And in his discussion of the book of Revelation he shows plainly
that he regards the Second and Third Epistles of John as his, and
we see that he claims their anonymity as a sign of John's incli-

THE AGE OF ORIGEN — DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA 229

nation to write anonymously : " And not even in the Second ana
Third Epistles of John which are in our hands, although they are
short, does John appear by name, but the presbyter writes
anonymously." In the same connection, however, thirty lines
later, he speaks of "the Epistle" more than once, and the
Catholic Epistle, meaning the First Epistle, as if John had only
written one. But we find a like numberless reference to the
Second Epistle by Aurelius of Chullabi in the seventh council
of Carthage, which was held in the year 256 during the lifetime
of Dionysius (Routh, 3. p. 130): "John the apostle commanded
(laid it down) in his Epistle saying : If anyone come to you and
have not the teaching of Christ, refuse to admit him into your
house, and do not greet him. For whoever shall have greeted
(welcomed) him takes part in his evil deeds," 2 John 10- n.
The quotation is loose enough. We then have Dionysius'
testimony for James, for Second and Third John, and for
Hebrews, but nothing for Second Peter or Jude. As for the
book of Revelation, we must give his words at length.

Dionysius of Alexandria's discussion of the authorship of the
Revelation is the first scientific discussion of the kind in the
early Church that has been preserved until our day. It offers in
its way for the criticism of the books of the New Testament a
parallel to Origen's criticism of the text of certain passages.
Eusebius (H. E. 7. 25) gives us first Dionysius' account of the
way in which some Christians had previously treated Revelation :
" For some then of those before us rejected and cast aside the
book in every way, and correcting it chapter for chapter, and,
showing that it was ignorant and unreasonable, declared that the
title was forged. For they say that it is not from John, and that
it is not even a revelation, being covered with the heavy and
thick veil of ignorance, and that not only no one of the apostles,
but not even any one of the saints or of those belonging to the
Church, was the maker of this book, but Cerinthus, backing up
the heresy called after him the Cerinthian, and wishing to set a
name worthy of credence at the head of his own fabrication. For
this is the dogma of his teaching, that Christ's kingdom will be
earthly, and in this he dreams that it will consist in those things
which he himself longed for, being a lover of the body and
altogether fleshly, in satisfyings of the belly and of the things
below the belly, that is in feastings and drinkings and marriages,

23O THE CANON

and in the things by means of which he thought that he would
succeed in getting these things under more acceptable names, in
feasts and offerings and sacrifices of sacred animals. But I
should not dare to reject the book, since many of the brethren
hold it with zeal, and I accept as greater than my consideration
of the book the general opinion about it, and regard the explana-
tion of the details in it for something hidden and most wonder-
ful. For even if I do not understand, yet I presuppose that a
certain deeper sense lies in the words. Not measuring and
judging these things with a reasoning of my own, but attributing
them rather to faith, I have thought that they were too high to
be apprehended by me, and I do not reject these things which I
have not seen with the rest, but am rather surprised that I have
not also seen them." Thus Dionysius.

Eusebius continues : " Thereat putting to the test the whole
book of Revelation, and having shown that it is impossible to
understand it according to the common conception, he adds,
saying : " And having finished the whole prophecy, so to speak,
the prophet blessed those who keep it, and so also himself. For
blessed, he says, is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy
of this book, and I John the one seeing and hearing these things.
I have then nothing to oppose to his being called John, and
to this book's being by John. For I agree that it is by some
one holy and inspired, yet I should not easily suppose that this
was the apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, of
whom the Gospel according to John and the Catholic Epistle
bear the name. For I judge from the bearing of each, and
the shape of the discourse, and the outcome of the book, that
it is not the same. For the Evangelist nowhere writes his name,
by the bye, nor heralds himself, either by means of the Gospel
or by means of the Epistle. Then a little farther on he says
this again : And John nowhere neither as about himself nor
as about another[?]. But the one writing the Revelation at
once in the beginning sets himself at the head: Revelation of
Jesus Christ which He gave to him to show to His servants
speedily, and He signified it sending- by His angel to His servant
John, who bore witness to the Word of God and to His testimony,
to as many things as he saw. Then also he writes a letter :
John to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace to you and
peace. But the Evangelist did not even write his name before

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA 23 1

the Catholic Epistle, but without needless words began with the
very mystery of the divine revelation : That which was from the
beginning, which we heard, which we saw with our eyes. For
on occasion of this very revelation also the Lord called Peter
blessed, saying : Blessed art thou Simon bar Jonah because flesh
and blood did not reveal it to thee, but my Heavenly Father.
But not in the Second that is circulated of John, or in the Third,
although they are short Epistles, does John appear by name, but
the presbyter writes namelessly. But this one did not even
think it enough, having named himself once, to relate what
follows, but he takes it up again : I, John, your brother and sharer
with you in the suffering and kingdom and in patient waiting for
Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the Word of
God and the testimony of Jesus. And then also at the end he
says this : Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy
of this book, and I, John, who see and hear these things. That
therefore John is the one who writes this is to be believed him-
self saying it. Which one, however, this is, is not clear. For he
did not, as often in the Gospel, say that he himself was the
disciple loved by the Lord, or the brother of James, or the one
who had been a self-seer and a self-hearer of the Lord. For he
would have said something of these things that were made clear
beforehand if he wished to display himself clearly."

Dionysius then speaks of the many Johns : " As also Paul was
much named, and Peter among the children of the believers," that
is, that many boys were called Paul and Peter. He mentions John
Mark, but thinks him unlikely to be the author. Then he refers
to the other John in Ephesus, who appears to be more likely to
have written it. He gives at length a view of the way in which
the author of the Gospel and the First Epistle writes, and turning
to the Revelation says : " But totally different and foreign to all
this is the Revelation, neither joining on to nor approaching this
in any way, almost so to speak not even having a syllable in
common with it. And neither has the Epistle any reminder or
any thought of the Revelation (for I let the Gospel pass), nor
the Revelation of the Epistle, whereas Paul refers in passing by
his Epistles also to his revelations which he did not write out by
themselves. And further also the difference of the language
between the Gospel and the Epistle over against the Revelation
is to be emphasized. For the former are written not only

232 THE CANON

faultlessly as regards the Greek speech, but also most logically
in the phrases, the arguments, the composition of the explanations.
It goes very hard to find in them a barbarous sound, a solecism,
or any personal peculiarity. For he had, as it appears, each of
the two words, the Lord having granted them to him, the word
of knowledge and the word of diction. But that this one saw
a revelation and received knowledge and prophecy, I do not
deny ; nevertheless I see his dialect and his tongue not Grecising
accurately, but using barbaric idioms and occasionally also
committing solecisms."

Dionysius was a great and a learned and an influential man.
He was not like Origen, for years before his death the object of
ecclesiastical hatred in Alexandria. Yet nevertheless his dis-
cussion of the Revelation in this way seems to have had but
little effect upon his surroundings or his successors, although it
certainly may have had a share in the shaping of the general
fate of the book of Revelation of which we have still to treat.
Dionysius stands for James, Second and Third John, Hebrews,
and for the Revelation as from an unknown John, but not for
Second Peter or Jude, so far as we can see.

Now we turn again to the West, again to Carthage. This
time we have to do not with a lawyer but with a bishop. Cyprian
was born at Carthage in the year 200, and taught rhetoric there.
He was baptized in 246, became presbyter and in 248 bishop of
Carthage. In the Decian persecution he fled for safety to the
desert, and under Valerian he was banished, but then beheaded
in 258 in his native city. Cyprian gives no signs of having
known anything about James, Second Peter, Second and Third
John, Jude, or Hebrews. He is a great quoter of Scripture, and
gives something from all the other books of the New Testament,
saving Philemon and those just named. Of course, there is the
bare possibility that he passed over one or the other short Epistle
merely by accident, as doubtless was the case with Philemon,
because it was short and offered little occasion for reference.
Singularly enough, we have a reference apparently to Second
Peter in a letter of Firmilian's, the bishop of Caesarea in
Cappadocia, which we find in Latin among the letters of Cyprian
(Ep. 75), to whom it was addressed. It will be remembered that
Dionysius mentioned Firmilian. Firmilian appears to have the
second chapter of Second Peter in mind when he writes to

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— CYPRIAN 233

Cyprian that Peter and Paul, the blessed apostles, "have in
their Epistles execrated the heretics and admonished us to
avoid them." Cyprian, however, knows well the Revelation, and
uses it freely.

The heresy of Paul of Samosata, who was bishop of Antioch
from 260 to 272, although excommunicated in 269, secures us
a reference to Hebrews and perhaps one to Jude. The Synod
at Antioch in the year 269 wrote a letter to Paul, and quoted
Hebrews under the introduction (Routh, 3. pp. 298, 299) :
" According to the apostle," which means according to Paul, and
as the accompaniment to two quotations from First Corinthians :
" And of Moses : Reckoning the shame of Christ greater riches
than the treasures of Egypt," Heb. n26. The allusion to Jude
is less clear. It is in the letter which Malchion, a presbyter at
Antioch and the head of a Greek school there, wrote in the
name of the bishops and presbyters and deacons of Antioch
and of the neighbouring cities and the Churches of God, to
Dionysius, bishop of Rome, and Maximus, bishop of Alexandria.
Malchion (Routh, 3. p. 304) describes the Bishop Paul as one :
" Denying his own God, and not keeping the faith which he
also himself formerly had." That may be connected with
Jude 3 and 4.

So we see that the great theological writers of this third
century give us divided testimony as to the seven books to which
we have especially directed our attention. James is supported by
Dionysius of Alexandria, and in an uncertain way by Origen.
Second Peter only has an uncertain testimony from Origen.
Second John is supported by Clement of Alexandria and by
Dionysius of Alexandria, but receives from Origen only an
uncertain note. Third John rests here on Dionysius and on
uncertain testimony from Origen. Jude is supported by Clement
of Alexandria and by Tertullian and by Origen, the first of our
seven books to find faith in the West. Hebrews can only appeal
to the three Alexandrians : Clement, Origen, and Dionysius.
Tertullian sets it aside as not a part of the New Testament,
although he thinks it a very fair book. Revelation again, like
the Epistle of Jude, finds support both East and West, for it is
accepted by Clement and Origen at Alexandria and by
Tertullian and Cyprian at Carthage, while Dionysius of Alex-
andria accepts it, it is true, but insists upon it that the current

234 THE CANON

belief of its having been written by the Apostle John is
altogether baseless.

Our task for this period consisted of three parts. One is
completed by the simple observation that we have nowhere
found any signs of a canonization of the books of the New
Testament, and with a single somewhat indistinct exception of
a movement on the part of any synod to say just what books
were genuine or what books were to be read, or what books were
not to be read. The second task is completed by the review of
the seven books just given. The third remains, the question as
to the books wThich are not in our New Testament and which
yet appear at or up to his time, during this period or during an
earlier period, to have held a place near to the books of the
Newr Testament.

This question may be divided into two, in so far as we may
ask on the one hand what books were in good and churchly
circles associated with the books of the New Testament, and,
on the other hand, what books anyone may have tried to forge
in the name of the apostles. We must in advance make our
minds up to one thing, namely, to the difficulty in many or in
almost all cases of being perfectly sure in just what sense the
churches, and with the churches the authors whom we have
to consult, regarded the books in question. Further, it must be
observed that in cases of doubt we have not the office to insist
upon it that the given books must of necessity have been held
by the churches to be equal to the books of the New Testament.
Be there doubt, we have a right to suppose that what was the
case elsewhere or before or after may be used to decide the case
in favour of a distinction between the doubtful books and those
that were certainly acknowledged.

Still further is to be observed, that the happy-go-luckiness with
which, the reckless way in which we have seen that the writers of
the early literature, which we have had to examine, quote not
only the books of the New Testament but also those of the Old
Testament, permits us to argue that they certainly will not in every
single case have paused to reflect whether or not in their rapid
flight they should write or should not write : " As it is written,"
"As it is spoken," " The Scripture saith," or not. Should anyone
urge that that will be true of cases touching the New Testament
books, and that they may have been by these errors of flightiness

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— OUTSIDE BOOKS 235

and carelessness denoted as Scripture by writers who upon sober
reflection would not have thus designated them, we must con-
cede it. But the error in the other cases is the error that is to
be looked for, and we have a right, it is our duty in this examina-
tion, to be especially upon our guard against it. At the same
time we may declare in advance, from human necessity or from
the consideration of the inevitable consequences of human
frailty, that certainly one book or another will really have been
quoted or used as canonical, although it is not in our New
Testament, simply because the boundaries were not settled,
because there was no definite boundary line between canonical
and non-canonical books.

Inasmuch as the question as to the valuation of a given book
is largely combined with the question as to its being read in the
assemblies of the Christians for public worship, it is necessary
that we revert for a moment to what was said above on this
point. What was read in the public meeting was read either
under the head of: God to Man, or under the head of: Man to
Man. It must not be overlooked that this is by no means a
Christian innovation. For the Jews read before the time of
Christ, so far as we can conjecture, various writings in the
synagogue which were not as yet determined to be authoritative.
Without doubt in some cases such public reading led the way to
the authorization of the said books. Under God to Man at the
close of the third century only the books of the Old Testa-
ment and the books of the New Testament which were current
in the given church could be read. At the middle of the century
Cyprian had already placed the words of Jesus above those of the
prophets, like the keynote to the Epistle to the Hebrews. And
these words of Jesus were the words written in the Gospels
(Cypr. de dom. orat. 1) : " Many are the things which God wished
to be said and to be heard through the prophets His servants,
but how much greater are those which the Son speaks."

Whether the view of all the churches as to what was New
Testament coincided with our view or not, is what we have
here to examine. But no book could be read as from God
to Man which had not then and there attained to this right
of being considered a part of the New Testament. Under
Man to Man might be brought first of all a sermon attach-
ing to the passage or one of the passages read, or it may be

236 , THE CANON

to a special text. Of course, this sermon was originally, as we
saw above, not attached to a text, but was a presentation of
something verbal that corresponded to a written Gospel. This
verbal Gospel had been succeeded by the written Gospel, which
in the third century had already passed on to the division God
to Man. The letters of the apostles were at first read here, but
had now also passed on to that higher division. Finally, there
might be read here a letter from a bishop, which makes us think
of the letters of Dionysius of Corinth and of Dionysius of
Alexandria, or a letter from another church. Nor was that all.
It will not seldom have been the case that a preacher could not
be had. Nowadays in Saxony in such a case the school teacher
may be appointed to read a sermon written by the clergyman, or
a printed sermon. In those early ages it was often desirable
to have something to read in the place of the lacking sermon.
Here then any good book, any book fitted to build up the
listening assembly in Christian life, could be read. What
should be read was at the first moment not determined by a
synod of bishops. The single churches will have acted as the
leading men in them decided. And it is to the books that we
discover thus to have been read that we have now to give
especial attention, and to try to decide whether they reached
this distinction of public reading by right of the assumption that
they were an utterance of God to Man, or whether they were
merely regarded as good books which spoke for Man to Man as
a sermon would speak.

The first book that we have to consider is the letter of
Clement of Rome to which we have already so often alluded.
It is a book about whose origin at Rome, and by the hand of
Clement a prominent Christian there, and probably about the
year 95, there can be no reasonable doubt. We read above
that Hegesippus stayed some time at Corinth on his way to
Rome. Eusebius gives us, then, Hegesippus' testimony for this
letter by adducing his statement that, as the letter presupposes,
there really had then been an uproar, an unusual dissension, a
revolution in the church at Corinth. Much more clear is the
account, given above, from Dionysius, the bishop of Corinth,
who mentions this letter in writing to the church of Rome or to
Soter, the bishop of Rome, perhaps just before 175. Now his
words are of great moment for the whole question touching the

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— CLEMENT OF ROME 237

public reading of these non-apostolic books in the churches.
He says (Eus. H. E. 4. 23): "To-day then we are passing the
Lord's holy day, on which we read your letter, which we shall
ever have, reading it now and then to keep it in mind, as also
the former one written to us by Clement." Remembering what
was said above about the point of view from which different
writings might be read in church, we have in the first place to
observe that Dionysius does not make a shadow of a distinction
between the reading of the lately received letter of Soter's and
the reading of the letter of Clement that had reached Corinth
eighty years before.

We must conclude from his words that Soter's letter was
read as Clement's was, or reversed, that Clement's letter was read
for the same reason, from the same standpoint, that Soter's was.
I see no possible way of escaping this conclusion. But no one
can for an instant think of supposing that the letter of Soter that
had just come was read to the church at Corinth under the
heading : God to Man, that it was read as if it were to be valued
as highly as Paul's letters to the Corinthians. And therefore
that must be the case with Clement. Here at Corinth, at the
place from which the copies of the letter of Clement were sent
out to neighbouring or even to distant churches, the letter of
Clement of Rome was read as a letter of Man to Man, was read
in the second, not in the first division of the writings used in
public worship. This circumstance must have in general been
of determining character for the other churches which received
this letter from the Corinthians in a copy. And this fact will
have to be borne in mind when we come to other similar writings.
There may have been here or there a misconception as to the
proper valuation of the letter, there may have been churches that
took the decision in their own hands and declared this letter for
the equal of the Pauline Epistles, but the decision of Corinth
will certainly have been the chief and overwhelming decision for
the case that anyone raised the question.

Irenaeus speaks of Clement as having heard the apostles, and
says (Eus. H. E. 5. 6): "At the time, then, of this Clement,
there being no little dissension among the brethren in Corinth,
the church in Rome sent a most powerful letter to the
Corinthians gathering them together unto peace and renewing
their faith." That he calls it a most powerful letter does not

238 THE CANON

suggest anything like canonicity. The word that he uses for
letter is the word for scripture, but it is totally impossible to
take it here in the specific sense of scripture. The sentence
demands its being taken in the general sense of "writing," which
I have given as " letter." Besides, Irenaeus uses the same adjective
" most powerful," and the same root for written, only this time
in a participle, in speaking of Polycarp's letter to the Philippians.
So there is no thought of its being scripture in the mind of
Irenaeus. Clement of Alexandria quotes his namesake often
and with respect, but does not use his letter as scripture. The
words : " The scripture saith somewhere," which begin a long,
loose quotation from Clement of Rome in one place, belong to
Clement of Rome himself, save that Clement of Alexandria has
put in the word scripture because the first sentence is from
Proverbs. He calls his namesake "the apostle Clement," but
he also with the New Testament calls Barnabas an apostle, " the
Apostle Barnabas." Origen calls him a " disciple of the apostles,"
and in one place "the faithful Clement who was testified to by Paul."
As for Eusebius, it is curious that in one place (H. E. 6. 13)
he puts it with the books that are disputed, saying of Clement of
Alexandria that he uses "quotations also from the disputed
writings ('scriptures,' it would be in a different connection), both
from the so-called Wisdom of Solomon and that of Jesus Sirach
and of the Epistle to the Hebrews, both from Barnabas and
Clement and Jude." Yet in the following chapter Eusebius
describes Clement of Alexandria's Sketches as explaining all the
" testament-ed " scriptures, not even passing by the disputed ones,
that is to say, Jude and the other Catholic Epistles and the letter
of Barnabas and the Revelation bearing the name of Peter,"
leaving Clement out altogether. And when Eusebius gives the
list of genuine, disputed, and spurious books he does not mention
Clement at all, although he names a number of the less known
books. He does in one passage (H. E. 3. 16) say of it: "And
we know also that this is read publicly before the people in very
many churches, not only of old, but also in our very own day " ;
yet it is plain, taking all this together, that he does not think it
to be scripture. Athanasius does not think it necessary to name
it when he, at the close of his list of the books of scripture,
excludes from that list the Teaching of the Apostles, which was
attributed to Clement, and the Shepherd of Hermas.

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— CLEMENT AND BARNABAS 239

Succeeding Church writers quote it, but never in such a waj
as to indicate that it occurs to them to regard it as scripture.
A reference to it among the books of the New Testament
in the Apostolic Canons (Can. 85) of the sixth century is
probably an interpolation, difficult as it is to imagine who would
have put the words in. The Greek text has : " Of Jude one, of
Clement two Epistles, and the Constitutions addressed to you
the bishops by me Clement, . . . and the Acts of us the
apostles." The Coptic text reads : " The Revelation of John ;
the two Epistles of Clement which ye shall read aloud." In the
Alexandrian manuscript of the Greek Bible the two letters, that
is to say, this letter and the homily called Second Clement, stand
after the Revelation. Had they been conceived of as regular
books of the New Testament they should have stood with the
other Epistles and before Revelation. The same manuscript
contains three beautiful Christian hymns, which no one so far as
I know supposes to be a part of the New Testament. A list of
the scriptures added to Nicephorus' Chronography of the early
ninth century put this letter among the Apocrypha. In the
twelfth century Alexius Aristenus, the steward of the Great Church
at Constantinople, refers to that list in the Apostolic Canons, and
mentions the two letters of Clement as scripture, but he stands
alone in this. The amount of it all is, that the letter of Clement
of Rome may here or there possibly have been read as scripture,
but that it never in any way approached general acceptance as
anything more than a good Christian book. It does not appear
to have been translated into Latin, so that there is not even a
question as to its scriptural authority in the Latin Church.

In the letter that bears the name of Barnabas we again find
a name that occurs in the New Testament, and that the name of
a man who plays a large part in the early Church and holds
a more important position than either Clement or Hermas.
Clement, however, may perhaps have been Paul's Clement,
whereas neither the one nor the other of these other writers had
anything to do with the times of the New Testament. The
letter of Barnabas was probably written about the year 130.
Whether its author really happened to bear the name of
Barnabas or not we do not know, for we know nothing about
him aside from his book. The book itself is certainly very
interesting. We find that it was especially valued and used in

240 THE CANON

Alexandria. Clement of Alexandria quotes it often, naming the
author simply (2. 15. 67 and 18. 84) Barnabas, or (2. 6. 31 and
7. 35) "the Apostle Barnabas." Once he writes (5. 10. 63):
11 Barnabas who also himself preached the word with the apostle
according to the service of the heathen (in the mission to the
heathen)." Again he says (2. 20. 116): "I shall need no more
words when I add as witness the apostolic Barnabas, who was of
the Seventy and a fellow-worker of Paul's, saying word for word
here. . . ." Origen quotes this letter also. For Tertullian we
may draw a very fair conclusion from his view of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, which we gave above. He thought that Hebrews
was quite a good book, and he was certain that it was written by
the real Barnabas, the companion of Paul, yet it did not occur
to him to regard it as equal to scripture. How much less would
he have thought that this " Barnabas " was scripture.

The name Barnabas in the Stichometry in the Codex Claro-
montanus is probably to be used as a proof that it was in good
standing in Egypt at about the beginning of the fourth century.
Eusebius places it in his list of books among those which are
spurious, between the Revelation of Peter and the Teachings of the
Apostles. In the Codex Sinaiticus of the Greek Bible it stands
after the Revelation. As a part of the New Testament it would
have taken a place among or with the Epistles, and before the
book of Revelation. Jerome says that it is an apocryphal book,
but that it is read. Its being read is simply no sign of its being
scripture. It is read as : Man to Man, as a good book, but not
as an equal of the apostolic books. In the list in Nicephorus'
Chronography, Barnabas stands among the disputed books. We
may say, then, of Barnabas that it shows far less signs of wide use
than Clement of Rome's letter does, but we may take it for
granted that, like Clement's letter, it will here or there have
been accepted as equal to the books of the New Testament.
But that can have occurred but rarely. After the fourth century
it seems gradually to have faded out of the thoughts of the
Church.

We now come to a book which secured to itself a host of
readers and friends. The Shepherd, written by Hermas the
brother of Pius the bishop of Rome, probably about the year
140, is a beautiful book of Christian dreams, putting to flight
every assault of doubt, and urging the faithful to endurance and

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— HERMAS 24 1

to patience in certain hope of the future glory. The fragment
of Muratori gives us over seven lines upon this book, and
furnishes the only account of its origin. It says : " The Shepherd,
moreover, Hermas wrote but very lately in our times in the city
of Rome, Pius the bishop his brother being seated in the chair
of the Roman church, and therefore it should be read, but it
cannot until the end of time be published (that is : read as if
it were scripture) in the church before the people, neither among
the completed number of the prophets nor among the apostles."
That tells us that two kinds of scripture books were then read in
the church, prophets and apostles. The " prophets " include Law,
Prophets, and Books, the whole Old Testament, and the author
of this list is sure that the list of those books is completed. That
is an announcement that the Old Testament canon was closed
for him at least. He does not say that the list of the apostolic
books has been closed, and the inference from the contrast is
that it is not yet closed as far as he is concerned. But be that
as it may, one thing is settled, Hermas may be read as a good
book, yet it may never to the end of time be accounted a part
of scripture. That is a strong statement.

The essay on the Dice-Players, written by we do not know
whom towards the end of the second century, calls the
Revelation and Hermas scripture, but does not name the
words of Jesus and the apostles scripture. Hermas is quoted
by Irenasus as scripture (4. 20. 2): "Well spoke therefore the
scripture which says : First of all believe that one is God, He
that created all things and wrought them out and made all things
from that which was not, into being." The word "scripture"
seems there to be used in its proper and full sense. It would be
possible to suggest that it was a momentary slip of the memory
on the part of Irenaeus, were it not for the. fact that the words
stand in a prominent place in Hermas. The words sound
scriptural enough. If anyone should quote them to-day to a
good Christian, who was not a Scotchman or a Wiirtemberger
that knew every verse from Genesis to Revelation, he would be
very likely for the moment to accept the quotation as a good one,
and to blame his memory for thinking that it sounded after all a
little odd. It is also fair to remember that we found Justin
Martyr mistaking the book in which a quotation was, and here
Clement does not name Hermas. Immediately afterwards he
16

242 THE CANON

names Malachi. We are led to make all these excuses because
the case seems so strange. When Eusebius quotes this passage
from Irenaeus, in giving an account of the literature used by
Irenaeus, he used himself the word " writing " in the general way,
not as of scripture. He says (H. E. 5. 8, 7) : " And he not only
knows but also receives" — that must mean as scripture — "the
writing of the Shepherd saying : Well spoke, therefore, the scrip-
ture which says," etc. Enough about the one passage which is
from a prominent writer, and which assigns to a book not in the
New Testament the rank of a New Testament book. Clement
of Alexandria quotes Hermas nine times, but never as scripture.
He usually refers not to the author, but to the one who has
spoken to Hermas : " For the power that appeared in the dream
to Hermas," "The shepherd the angel of repentance, speaks to
Hermas," " Divinely therefore the power, uttering according to
revelation the visions to Hermas, says."

Tertullian, our Carthaginian lawyer, is clear in his mind
about Hermas. It has often been said that he called Hermas
" scripture " while he was still a Catholic, but that he condemned
the book after he had become a Montanist. The fact is, that
he mentions the book twice, once contemptuously and briefly
while he was a Catholic, and once at length and violently
after he had left the Church. He says in his wonderful essay
on prayer (ch. 16): "For what, then, if that Hermas, whose
book (writing, scripture) is inscribed something like Shepherd,
after he had finished praying had not sat down on the bed,
but had done something else, should we also insist upon it
that that was to be observed? Not at all." There is nothing
but contempt in his allusion to " that Hermas " whose book
was perhaps called Shepherd, perhaps something else. But
Tertullian had not time then to busy himself with Hermas. The
time for Hermas came when Tertullian wrote his treatise on
Modesty. In one place in it (ch. 20, see above at the Epistle
to the Hebrews) he says, would that that Epistle were more
common among the churches : "Than that apocryphal Shepherd
of the adulterers." In another place (ch. 10) he delivers himself
as follows : " But I should yield to you, if the writing (scripture) of
the Shepherd, which only loves adulterers, should have been
worthy to fall into the divine instrument (instrument is testament),
if it had not been condemned by every council of the churches,

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— HERMAS 243

even of yours, among the apocryphal and false (books or things),
an adulteress (the word for writing being feminine) both herself,
and thence a patroness of her companions, from whom also you
would initiate others, whom that Shepherd perhaps would defend,
whom you depict on the cup, himself a prostituter of the Christian
sacrament, and deservedly the idol of drunkenness and the asylum
of the adultery about to follow upon the cup, from which thou
wouldst taste nothing more gladly than the sheep of a second
penitence. But I draw from the scriptures of that shepherd who
cannot be broken. This one John (the Baptist) at once offers me
with the bath and office of penitence, saying : Bring forth fruits
worthy of repentance."

That is a rich passage. We learn that the Churches often
had a shepherd on the communion cup. We learn, what
we thus far know from no other source, that more than one,
doubtless several, synods had discussed the question as to the
admission at least of Hermas, and probably of other books,
to the number of the New Testament books. And we learn
that the Shepherd had been strictly and everywhere condemned,
not only in synods of heretical, of Montanist clergymen, but
also in regular synods of the Catholic Church. How widely
spread these synods were does not appear. They may have
been only in Africa, in the province about Carthage. We should
expect to hear or to have heard something about them if they
had also been held in Italy or in eastern Africa.

Perhaps we should know a little more about what the churches
in eastern Africa and Palestine thought of Hermas if we had the
Greek original of Origen's commentary on Romans. The Latin
translation of the commentary on Rom. 1614, where Hermas is
named, reads : " Yet I think that this Hermas is the writer of
that little book which is called the Shepherd, which book (writing,
scripture) seems to me to be extremely useful and, as I think,
divinely inspired." That seems all very well. But it does not
sound like Origen, and the translator Rufinus tells Heraclius, to
whom he wrote on finishing the translation of this commentary,
what an "immense and inextricable labour had weighed upon
him " in the translation of this very commentary, in supplying
what Origen had omitted, which means, in making a good
orthodox book out of the work of that wild Origen. These words
are therefore no guide to Origen's view touching Hermas. In

244 THE CANON

his commentary on Matthew, while discussing Matt. 1970 at
great length, he says : " And if it be necessary venturing to
bring in a suggestion from a book (writing, scripture) that is
current in the Church, but not agreed by all to be divine, the
passage could be drawn from the Shepherd about some who at
once when they believed were under Michael." He gives the
passage. But he says at the close : "But I think that this is not
proper,'' so that he does not seem to have any great opinion of
Hermas after all.

Eusebius places it among the spurious books. He names
as the first of these the Acts of Paul, then the book called
the Shepherd, and then the Revelation of Peter. It stands in
the Codex Sinaiticus with Barnabas after the Revelation, and it
was still copied in Latin Bibles as late as the fifteenth century ;
it stood in them between Psalms and Proverbs, a strange place
for a book that was like neither the one nor the other of the two.
Athanasius, in his letter announcing the date of Easter, the thirty-
ninth letter, of the year 367, names it at the end with certain non-
canonical books that are allowed to be read, namely, the Wisdom
of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, the
Teachings of the Apostle, and the Shepherd. It is the last of all.
Jerome has been supposed to refer to Hermas in one passage as :
"That apocryphal book to be condemned of stupidity " ; but as he
elsewhere quotes it with respect and regards it as a churchly book,
and as one useful to be read, he probably has in that passage
some other book in view.

In the manuscript of the Pauline Epistles named Claro-
montanus, which is supposed to be of the sixth century, we
find, before the Epistle to the Hebrews, a Stichometry, a list
of the books of the New Testament which is very old, probably
much older than the manuscript itself. In this list we have
at the close Revelation, Acts, then the Shepherd, and after it
the Acts of Paul and the Revelation of Peter. Here it is
placed in contact with the New Testament, yet it takes its
character also from the two books which follow it. The fact of
its being in that list at that point can scarcely be considered as
a certain testimony to the canonicity of Hermas at that time
and in that place. But though the manuscript was undoubtedly
written in the West, and though this list is a Latin list, the
approach to canonicity, or if any one please the canonicity

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— POLYCARP 245

claimed for it here, is part and parcel of the same thing that we
saw in the case of Clement of Alexandria. The list appears
to be of Egyptian origin, although it may be connected with
Eusebius. It probably dates from the beginning or middle of
the fourth century. Hermas is supposed to have ceased to be
used, or to be read in church in the East, where it had happened
to be so read, in the fourth or fifth century.

We have already mentioned Polycarp's letter to the church
at Philippi. It was not singular, when we consider the important
position held by, and the wide influence exercised by, Polycarp,
not only in his immediate neighbourhood but also through widely
distant provinces, that this letter should be highly prized and
repeatedly read in the churches that secured copies of it.
Jerome, in speaking of Polycarp, says (de vir. ill. 17) : " He wrote
to the Philippians an exceedingly useful letter which is read in the
Church of Asia until to-day." The expression is not definite.
It points, however, not to Philippi in Macedonia but to Asia. It
is to be presupposed that at least in Philippi itself, if not in other
churches in Macedonia, the letter also continued to be read.
The phrase " in the Church of Asia " cannot be used of a single
congregation. It means the Church in Asia. Yet it need not
be supposed that every single church used the letter, and there
is not the least reason for taking the word Asia in anything more
than the most general sense. In other words, we do full justice,
I think, to Jerome's statement if we suppose that a few of the
churches in western Asia Minor at his day still continued to read
this letter. It was certainly read as : Man to Man, and not as
equal to the books of the New Testament. Nothing indicates
the latter. It stands on the same basis as the letters of Dionysius
of Corinth.

One book that now seems to stand very near to the Gospels,
and again moves further away from them, demands particular
attention. But we shall scarcely reach any very definite
conclusion about it. It is like an ignis fatuus in the literature of
the Church of the first three centuries. We cannot even tell
from the statements about it precisely who, of the writers who
refer to it, really saw it. Yes, we are even not sure that it is not
kaleidoscopic or plural. It may be that several, or at least two,
different books are referred to, and that even by people who
fancy that there is but one book, and that they know it. This is

246 THE CANON

the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or the Gospel of the

Hebrews.

Let us first name the possibilities, say what may have been
alluded to under this designation. Every reader will at once
turn in thought to the "previous Gospel" or to the "sayings
of Jesus " that we have referred to as having probably been
written by the Twelve -Apostle Matthew and in Hebrew or
Aramaic. Nothing would be easier than for any or every one who
saw, read, or heard of that book, either and particularly in its
original Semitic garb or even in its Greek dress in the form
under which the writers of our Gospels used it, to call it the
Gospel to the Hebrews, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or
the Hebrews' Gospel. The second possibility I must mention,
although I hold it myself to be an impossibility. For those, and
there are doubtless still scholars who hold the opinion, who think
that our Gospel according to Matthew was at first a Hebrew
book, the name Gospel according to the Hebrews might well
have attached to it. Not only the language but also the many
references to the fulfilment of prophecy, the close connection of
the whole with the Old Testament, would seem to justify the use
of this title. The third possibility is that this designation has
nothing to do with our Gospels or with their sources, but that it
properly attaches to a real Gospel, that is to say, to a full account
of the words and deeds of Jesus from the beginning of His
ministry to His death and resurrection, which was written in
Hebrew or Aramaic. The date of this Gospel may have, almost
must have, been quite early, seeing that after the composition and
distribution of copies of our Gospels one would look for a transla-
tion of one of them rather than for the preparation of a totally
new Gospel. This third possibility regards the Gospel as one
from the circles that were in touch with the general Church.

The fourth possibility passes this line, and regards this Gospel
as the product of some branch, sect, offshoot from the central
form of Christianity at that day, as the Gospel of some Ebionitic
or other Jewish Christian group, for the language limits the search
to Jewish lines. This Gospel need not then have been at all an
autochthon gospel, one that arose independently from a root of
its own upon Palestinian soil. It may have been a revamping
within still more narrow Jewish limits of what our Gospel
according to Matthew contains, or its author may have had the

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— GOSPEL TO THE HEBREWS 247

three synoptic Gospels before him. Yet even in this case it
would be to be expected that the author or composer should add
to what he found in writing before him many a trait and many a
saying attributed justly or of no right to Jesus in the Palestinian
group to which he himself belonged. A fifth possibility, not a
probability, would be that some Christian from one of the more
exclusively Jewish groups had written this Gospel, not in Hebrew
but in Greek, intending it for the Jews in the Diaspora, and thus
offering an evangelical parallel to the Epistle to the Hebrews.
These possibilities will suffice for the moment. It may be added
here that, as a matter of course, such a Gospel, whatever the
circumstances of its origin may have been, the moment that it
presented matter foreign to what our Gospels bring, must have
been used as a source for interpolations, for the addition of words,
sentences, sayings, paragraphs to our Gospels. One might almost
suppose that the readers of our Gospels who knew and read that
Gospel, either in Aramaic or in a Greek translation, would scarcely
fail to insert in the synoptic text, or later in the text of the Fourth
Gospel, all important additions, all that seemed to them worth
while to record, that the Gospel to the Hebrews contained, and
therefore that if we should find some day this Gospel, it would
prove to be almost entirely familiar to us out of our own Gospels
and their interpolations, the fragments put into them.

In passing now to the examination of the references to some
such Hebraic Gospel we must be ready in advance to find
allusions which cannot with certainty be ascribed to the one or
the other of the possibilities mentioned. First of all, we must
recur to Papias, of whom Eusebius says that he has the story
of a woman, apparently the adulteress of John 753-8n,
which the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains. But
Eusebius does not say, evidently is not sure, that Papias drew it
from that Gospel. Then we must turn to those words about
Hegesippus, who as Eusebius tells us brings material " from the
Gospel according to the Hebrews." Perhaps it was in this
Gospel that he found the following words, which must have been
taken from 1 Corinthians 29, which again is based upon Isaiah
64* : " That the good things prepared for the righteous neither
eye hath seen nor ear hath heard nor has entered into the heart
of man." Stephen Gobarus, as quoted by Photius (cod. 232),
declares that Hegesippus, in the fifth book of his Memoirs, decries

248 THE CANON

these words as false, and quotes Matthew 1316 as right : " Blessed
are your eyes that see and your ears that hear," etc. But it may
be that Hegesippus really is combating a heretical application of
these words. It has also been suggested that they are even not
taken by Paul from Isaiah, but from an apocrvphal book, and that
Hegesippus has this apocryphal author in view and not the Gospel
to the Hebrews.

In Justin Martyr (Dial. 103) we have a quotation that might
very well come from this Gospel. He writes of Jesus after the
baptism : " For also this devil at the time that He came up
from the river Jordan, the voice having said to Him : Thou art
my Son, I have begotten Thee to-day, in the Memoirs of the
apostles is written coming up to Him and tempting Him so far as
to say to Him : Worship me." Now Justin does not give the
Memoirs for these words of the voice. .We must observe further
that it would be very fitting for a Jewish writer to apply these
words of the Second Psalm to Jesus here at the baptism. And
we find, oddly enough, that these words have been put into
the passage in Luke 322 in the manuscript of Beza, Codex D,
which represents the text that was wrought over by many busy
hands in the second century. And Augustine tells us that some
manuscripts in his day had these words there in Luke, although
they were not to be found in the older Greek manuscripts. It
was said above that this Gospel might have, for example, Ebionitic
connections ; it is therefore interesting to observe here that
Epiphanius gives this saying for the voice at the baptism as
contained in the Ebionitic Gospel according to Matthew. We
must revert to that again in a moment.

Justin, referring in another passage (Dial. 88) to the baptism,
touches another point that may be from this Gospel. He says :
" When Jesus came down to the water a fire was also kindled in
the Jordan." Here that Ebionitic Gospel (Epiph. 30. 13) says
that after Jesus came up from the water, and after the voice had
spoken : " And at once a great light shone about the place."
From this difference it would at first not seem possible that
Justin's source and the Ebionitic Gospel could be the same.
But when we reflect that Justin is not quoting but telling about
it, and when we remember how loosely Justin quotes even when
he does quote, it would appear to be quite possible that he had
here put a fire for a great light. The general thought remains

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— GOSPEL TO THE HEBREWS 249

the same. However, the time of the phenomenon is different.
Justin's story lets the Jordan burn as Jesus enters into it, whereas
the Ebionitic account assumes that the light is a heavenly
accompaniment as a confirmation of or corollary to the words of
the voice. This light also appears in a Latin, an old Latin
manuscript which may also here stand as a representative of that
re-wrought text of the second century.

Justin may have found another saying of Jesus in this Gospel.
He writes (Dial. 47) : " Wherefore also our Lord Jesus Christ
said : In what things I take you, in these shall I also judge
you." That can hardly be, as some have thought, another form
for John 530 : " As I hear, I judge." Clement of Alexandria gives
the same phrase, only a trifle altered (Quis Dives, 40) : " At what
I find you, at these also I shall judge," and he does not give an
author for it. The Sinaitic monk John of the Ladder attributes
it to Ezekiel. Justin may have it from the Gospel to the
Hebrews. There is then one other saying of Jesus, also already
mentioned above in another connection when we spoke of Justin.
He says in between two quotations from Matthew (Dial. 35) as
all three spoken by Jesus : "There will be schisms and heresies."
It is possible that these words simply offer us a combination of
two of the kinds of error we have found to occur in Justin, loose
quotation and reference to a wrong book, and that they are only
a "Justinian" form for 1 Corinthians n18,19. But they may
be from the Gospel to the Hebrews. The Clementine Homilies
combine these words with the quotation from Matthew which
follows them in Justin, so that they appear to have used Justin and
to have confused what Justin kept at least that far apart. Never-
theless they write : " As the Lord said."

Eusebius says that the Ebionites use only the Gospel accord-
ing to the Hebrews, and think that the other Gospels are not
worth much. The question for us is, whether we should com-
bine this with what we observed above as to the similarity
between the text of the Ebionites and the singular passages in
Justin, or whether we should suppose that Eusebius thought that
the Ebionites used a Hebrew Gospel that was the equivalent of
our Greek Matthew. When Eusebius makes his list of the New
Testament books he gives the accepted books, then the disputed
ones, then the spurious ones, tacking on the Revelation doubt-
fully, and finally he adds (H. E. 3. 25) : "But some also reckon

250 THE CANON

among these the Gospel according to the Hebrews, in which
especially the Hebrews who have received Christ take pleasure."

Epiphanius says (Haer. 30. 13) that the Ebionites use the Gospel
of Matthew : " not, however, full and complete, but spoiled and
cut down (mutilated), and they call this the Hebrew [Gospel]."
Now here again we must ask whether Epiphanius is right in
thinking that this is Matthew mutilated, or whether the Gospel
that they used was that shorter Gospel which we suppose Matthew
to have written, and which was then used in the composition, for
example, of our Matthew. Of course, it would look like a
mutilated Matthew although it were precisely, on the contrary, a
Matthew that had not yet been bolstered out from other sources.
In another passage (Haer. 30. 3) Epiphanius says : "And they
also receive the Gospel according to Matthew. For this they
also, as also those who follow Cerinthus and Merinthus, use alone.
And they call it : according to the Hebrews, as in truth it is to
be said, that Matthew alone in the New Testament made a repre-
sentation and proclamation of the Gospel in Hebrew and in
Hebrew letters." Now, when Epiphanius speaks of the Nazarenes
(Haer. 29. 9) he says: "And they have the Gospel according to
Matthew most complete in Hebrew. For with them clearly this
is still preserved as it was written from the beginning in Hebrew
letters. But I do not know whether they have taken away the
genealogies from Abraham till Christ." The last words show that
he really knows nothing about this Gospel. It may also be the
short preliminary Gospel. That only impresses more strongly the
thought just urged, namely, that Epiphanius may in his ignorance
have confused reports of the usual Gospel according to Matthew
with those of the previous preliminary Gospel.

Clement of Alexandria quotes this Gospel simply with the
formula " it is written " (2. 9. 45) : " In the Gospel according to
the Hebrews it is written : He that admires shall rule, and he
that ruled shall cease." Origen quotes it, for example, thus (on
John, vol. 2. 12 [6]): "And if anyone approaches the Gospel
according to the Hebrews, where the Saviour Himself says " ; and
again he quotes precisely the same passage, saying : " And if
anyone accepts the words." In his Theophany (4. 13) Eusebius
quotes a Hebrew Gospel, in discussing the parable of the talents,
thus : " But the Gospel which has reached us in Hebrew characters
fastened the threat not upon the one who hid away, but upon the

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— GOSPEL TO THE HEBREWS 25 1

one who lived luxuriously." That may have been merely a
Syriac copy of our Gospels, but it may have been the Gospel
according to the Hebrews in one of its chameleon phases.
Theodoret's remarks on the Ebionites and this Gospel are clearly
a poor condensation of what Eusebius says.

Jerome knew this Gospel well, and translated it into Greek
and Latin (de vir. ill. 2), and said that Origen often used it. He
tells us that it was written in the Chaldee and Syrian language,
but in Hebrew letters, and that it was still used in his day by the
Nazarenes, and he names it also (adv. Pel. 3. 2) "according to
the Apostles, or as many think according to Matthew, which also
is in the library at Caesar ea." The use of Hebrew letters for
Syriac was nothing strange. The Jews write and print to-day in
various languages, using Hebrew letters. I have a German New
Testament printed in Berlin nearly eighty years ago in Hebrew
letters. Jerome (de vir. ill. 3) seems to have copied this Gospel
from a manuscript which Nazarenes in Bercea (Aleppo) possessed.
The vague way in which he speaks of it shows that he did not
regard it, or at any rate that he was perfectly sure that others
would not regard it, as apostolic. He says of its authority (adv.
Pel. 3. 2) : " Which testimonies, if you do not use them for
authority, use them at least for age (antiquity), what all churchly
men have thought." Bede, who died in 735, counted it among
"the churchly histories," because Jerome had used it so often.
In the list given in the Chronography of Nicephorus it stands as
the fourth of the four disputed books : Revelation of John, Reve-
lation of Peter, Barnabas, Gospel according to the Hebrews.
That is the great Gospel that lies outside of our New Testament.
We shall doubtless some day receive a copy of it in the original,
or in a translation. It may have contained much of what
Matthew, Mark, and Luke contain, without that fact having been
brought to our notice in the quotations made from it. For those
who quoted it did so precisely in order to give that which varied
from the contents of our four Gospels, or especially of the three
synoptic ones.

It will not be necessary to treat at length of other Gospels.
None of them approaches the importance of the Gospel accord-
ing to the Hebrews. The Gospel of the Ebionites and that of
the Nazarenes doubtless were taken by some authors to be the
same as the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and may have

252 THE CANON

been closely related to it. It should not be forgotten that, just
as the text of our Gospels was much re-wrought during the
second century, so also these Gospels or this Gospel, if the three
should happen to be one, will surely have been re-wrought. In
consequence of that it will be possible that differences that
appear in the form are due to different recensions and not to
different books. In discussing asceticism Clement of Alexandria
refers to things supposed to have been said by Jesus to Salome.
He says (3. g. 6$) : " It stands, I think, in the Gospel according
to the Egyptians." In another place, writing against the leader
of the Docetae, Julius Cassianos, who had urged some of the
Salome passages, he says (3. 13. 93) : " First, then, we have not
this saying in the four Gospels that have been handed down to us,
but in that according to the Egyptians." Origen, in the discus-
sion of the first verse of Luke, says : " The Church has four
Gospels, the heresies a number, of which one is entitled accord-
ing to the Egyptians, another according to the twelve apostles.
Even Basilides dared to write a Gospel, and to put his name in
the title." Epiphanius writes of Sabellius and his followers
(Haer. 62. 2): "But they have all their error, and the power
of their error from some apocrypha, especially from the
so-called Egyptian Gospel, to which they gave this name."
None of these references implies an equality of this Gospel to
our four.

In the passage on Luke i1 Origen named not only the two
given above, but also one according to Mathias. The Latin
translation speaks also of the Gospel of Thomas before that of
Mathias, but it may be a later addition. To the Gospel of
Thomas might be added the name of another of the later
Gospels, the Gospel of the Infancy, and perhaps, too, that of
Nicodemus. The Gospel of Nicodemus was in Canterbury,
chained to a pillar, as late as the time of Erasmus.

A Gospel or a teaching and acts and a revelation were adorned
with the name of Peter. Ignatius seems to refer to this when
he writes to the church at Smyrna (ch. 3) : " And when he came
to those about Peter, he said to them : Take, touch me and
see that I am not a bodiless demon. And immediately they
touched and believed, joined with his flesh and his spirit."
Serapion, who was ordained bishop of Antioch about 191, is
said by Jerome to have written a book about the Gospel of

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— GOSPEL OF PETER 253

Peter and to have addressed it to the church at Rhossus in
Cilicia, which had turned aside to heresy by reading it (the
Gospel of Peter). This book was probably a letter.

Eusebius quotes from it (H. E. 6. 12) as follows : "For we
brethren also receive Peter and the other apostles as Christ.
But the books falsely written in their name, we as experienced
men reject, knowing that we [of old] have not received such.
For when I was with you, I supposed that ye were all united
in the right faith. And without reading the Gospel produced
by them in the name of Peter I said, that if it be this alone
that seems to afford you modesty (or lowliness of soul), let it
be read. But now learning from what has been said to me
that their mind has been cherishing a certain heresy, I shall
hasten again to be with you. Therefore, brethren, look for
me soon. . . . For we were able from others of the ascetics to
borrow this very Gospel, that is, from the successors of those
who began it, whom we call Docetae (for the most of the
thoughts are of their teaching), and to read it. And we found
that much of it was of the right word of the Saviour. But some
[other] things were added, which also we have noted for you
below."

Clement of Alexandria quotes it thus (Strom. 1. 29. 182):
" And in the Preaching of Peter thou wouldst find the Lord
proclaiming law and word." Again he writes : " Peter in the
Preaching says," and : " Therefore Peter says that the Lord
spoke to the Apostles," and (6. 6. 48) : " At once in the Preach-
ing of Peter the Lord says to the disciples after the resurrection,"
and (6. 15. 128): "Whence also Peter in the Preaching
speaking of the apostles says." He quotes a great deal from it,
and clearly with great respect. Once he writes : " Declares the
Apostle Paul speaking in agreement with the preaching of Peter,"
but here he may refer to the preaching as by word of mouth.
Still, he is quoting the book in the neighbourhood of this passage,
so that the reference to it is more likely.

Origen speaks of it very differently and very decidedly in
the preface to his work on Principles : " If, moreover, anyone
may wish to quote from that book which is called Peter's
Teaching, where the Saviour seems to say to the disciples :
I am not a bodiless demon. In the first place, it is to be
answered to him that that book is not held among the Church

254 THE CANON

books, and to be shown that the writing (scripture) itself s
neither of Peter nor of anyone else who was inspired with the
Spirit of God." In another place (on Matt. vol. 10. 17), speaking
of the brothers of Jesus, Origen mentions it merely in passing :
" Going out from the basis of the Gospel entitled according to
Peter or of the book of James, they say that the brothers of
Jesus were sons of Joseph by a previous wife who had lived with
him before Mary." Gregory of Nazianzus writes in a letter (Ep. 1)
to his brother Caesarius : " A labouring soul is near God, says
Peter, somewhere speaking wonderful words." He does not say
from what book it is taken. The saying is beautiful. The
Revelation of Peter is mentioned in the Muratorian fragment
immediately after the Revelation of John. The writer adds of
the Revelation of Peter: "Which some of us do not wish
to be read in church." That shows that others did wish
it to be read in church. Eusebius tells us that Clement of
Alexandria wrote comments on it in his Sketches, as well as on
Barnabas.

Eusebius himself placed it in his list among the spurious
books, between the Shepherd and Barnabas. In another place
(H. E. 3. 3) he wrote : " As for the Acts called his [Peter's],
and the Gospel named after him, and the Preaching said to be
his, and the so-called Revelation, we know that they are not
at all handed down among the catholic [writings], because no
Church writer, neither of the ancients nor of those in our day,
used proof passages from them." He evidently had forgotten
or overlooked Clement of Alexandria. Macarius Magnes, pro-
bably from near Antioch and of the middle of the fourth
century, gives (4. 6) a quotation from the Revelation thus :
" And by way of superfluity let that be said which is spoken
in the Revelation of Peter." But he at once proceeds to show
that he does not in the least agree with the quotation.

A spurious Third Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians was long
preserved, and is now well known, especially from the Armenian
version of it ; with it the forged letter of the Corinthians to Paul
is also still in existence. An Epistle to the Laodiceans is found
in Latin. The oldest copy known is of about the year 546, in the
Vulgate manuscript written for Victor the Bishop of Capua, and
now for centuries at Fulda in Germany. It is of no value, but
it is found in a number of Vulgate manuscripts.

THE AGE OF ORIGEN— ACTS OF PETER 255

We may leave these books now. We have seen that the
letter of Clement of Rome was much read, but we have no
token that it was read as scripture. Irenseus named Hennas
in that one passage scripture, and Clement of Alexandria quoted
the Preaching of Peter in a most respectful way. That is all
very little.

256

V.

THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS.

300-370.

In turning to a new age our problem becomes still more simple.
We have already disposed of the books that are not in our New
Testament. We only have the two questions left, touching the
canonization of the books of the New Testament and touching
the view held as to the seven disputed books : James, 2 Peter,
2 and 3 John, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation.

One man must be mentioned at the outset from whom we
should probably have received much had he lived to a good age.
But he did much for the books of the Bible in spite of his
shortened life. His name was Pamphilus. He was born at
what is now called Beirut in Syria, the old Berytus. He studied
at Alexandria under Pierius, and became presbyter at Caesarea
under the Bishop Agapius. He died as a martyr in the year 309.
Eusebius was closely united to him, and is called therefore the
Eusebius of Pamphilus. Eusebius wrote his life. A fragment
lately discovered has been supposed to refer to a life of him by
his teacher Pierius, but I am inclined to interpret the words as
pointing to help given by Pierius to Eusebius in writing the life.
Pamphilus wrote with Eusebius an Apology for Origen. His
great merit for us lies in his extraordinary care for the library at
Caesarea. It is likely that Origen did much to enlarge this
library, and it may have contained his own books. We still have
in some Greek manuscripts of the Bible notes, subscriptions,
telling that they or their ancestors were compared with the
manuscripts in Pamphilus' library at Caesarea, thus attributing
to the manuscripts there a certain normative value as carefully
written and carefully compared with earlier manuscripts. In one
of the older manuscripts of the Epistles of Paul, which unfortun-

THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS— EUSEBIUS 257

ately is but a fragment, we read: "I wrote and set out (this
book) according to the copy in Csesarea of the library of the
holy Pamphilus." In some manuscripts is added: "written by
his hand," showing that he himself had shared in the work of
writing biblical manuscripts. Such subscriptions are found not
only in Greek, but also in Syrian manuscripts.

Pamphilus's friend Eusebius is of great weight for us. He
has already shown his value for the criticism of the Canon in the
mere preservation of fragments of earlier writers. To him we
owe a large part of our knowledge of the first three centuries of
Christianity. But the criticism of the Canon owes him a special
debt, because much of his Church History is devoted to the
observation of the way in which the churches and the Christian
authors had used and valued or not valued the books of the
New Testament which were of doubtful standing, and the other
books which had secured for themselves a certain recognition
and were to be found in manuscripts and in Church use in the
immediate neighbourhood of the acknowledged books of the
New Testament. His Church History was written at a mature
age. He was probably born between 260 and 265, was Bishop
of Csesarea before 315, and he died probably in 339 or 340.
He wrote the history apparently in sections, and with revisions
between the years 305 and 325. We must give his statements
in full. They are the chief discussions of the Canon in the
early Church.

In the third book of his Church History, Eusebius tells first
where the various apostles preached, drawing from Origen, then
he mentions Linus as in charge of the church at Rome after
the martyrdom of Paul and Peter, and takes up the Epistles of
the Apostles (H. E. 3. 3): " One Epistle then of Peter, the one
called his former [Epistle], is acknowledged. And this the
presbyters of old have used often in their writings as undisputed.
But the second one that is current as his, we have received not
to be testament-ed (a part of the testament, canonical we should
say to-day). Nevertheless, having appeared useful to many, it
has been much studied with the other writings (books, scriptures).
But the book of the Acts called his and the Gospel named after
him, and the so-called Preaching and the so-called Revelation,
we know are not in the least handed down among the Catholic
(books, or among the Catholic churches), because no Church
17

258 THE CANON

writer either of the ancients or of those in our day has used
proof passages from them. And as the history goes on I shall
make a point of calling attention along with the lines of succession
[of the bishops] to such of the Church writers at each period as
have used which (any) of the disputed books, and both to what
is said by them about the testament-ed and acknowledged
writings, and to as many things as are said about those that are
not such (are not acknowledged). But those named of Peter
are so many, of which I know only one Epistle as genuine and
acknowledged by the presbyters of old. And of Paul the
fourteen [Epistles] are open to sight and clear.

It is not just to ignore the fact that, however, some set aside
the [Epistle] to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed in the church
of the Romans as not being Paul's. And I shall chronicle at the
proper time what has been said about this by those who were be-
fore us. Nor have I received the Acts said to be his among the
undisputed [books]. And since the same apostle in the greetings
at the end of the Epistle to the Romans makes mention with the
others also of Hermas, of whom they say there is the Book of
the Shepherd, it must be known that this too is disputed by
some, on account of whom it could not be placed among the
acknowledged books, but by others it is judged to be most
necessary for those who have especial need of an elementary
introduction [to the faith]. Whence also we know that it is also
read publicly in churches, and I have observed that some of the
oldest writers have quoted it. So much may be said to give an
idea both of the divine writings that are not spoken against, and
of those that are not acknowledged by all."

Twenty chapters later, after bringing from Clement of Alex-
andria a delightful account of John's reclaiming a robber, he
again takes up the question of Church books by alluding to those
of John (H. E. 3. 24 and 25) : " And now also let us make a note
of the writings of this apostle that are not spoken against. And
indeed, first of all let the Gospel according to him be acknow-
ledged by the churches under Heaven. That verily with good
reason at the hands of the ancients it was placed in the fourth
division of the other three, in this would be clear. The divine and
truly godworthy men, I speak of the apostles of Christ, cleansed
thoroughly in their life, adorned with every virtue in their souls,
untaught in tongue, but full of courage in the divine and incredible

THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS— EUSEBIUS 259

power bestowed upon them by the Saviour, on the one hand
neither knew how nor tried to make known the lessons of the
teacher by skill and by rhetorical art, but using alone that which
the Divine Spirit working with them set forth, and the miracle-
working power of Christ brought to an end through them, pro-
claimed the knowledge of the Kingdom of the Heavens to all
the inhabited world, giving little thought to the study of the way
in which they should write it down. And this they did as being
fully devoted to a service that was very great and beyond man."

" Paul then, who was the most mighty of all in array of words
and most able in thoughts, did not put in writing more than the
very short letters, although he had thousands of things and un-
speakable to say, having attained unto the visions as far as the third
Heaven and having been caught up in the divine paradise itself,
and been held worthy to hear the unspeakable words there. There-
fore also the remaining pupils of the Lord were not without ex-
perience of the same things, the twelve apostles and the seventy
disciples and ten thousand besides these. Nevertheless, then, out
of all Matthew and John alone have left us memoirs (notes) of
the teachings of the Lord, who also are said to have been forced
to come to their writing. For Matthew having formerly preached
to Hebrews, as he was about to go also to others, putting in
writing in his mother tongue the Gospel according to him, filled
up by the book the void of his presence to these from whom he
was sent. And Mark and Luke having published (made the
edition) of the Gospels according to them, John they say having
used the whole time an unwritten preaching, finally also came to
the writing for the following reason."

Then Eusebius shows how the other three had left out the
due beginning of the Gospel, what Jesus did before John the
Baptist was cast into prison, and that John had to supply this
in his Gospel. He also tells how Luke had reached a certain
independence of judgment for his Gospel by his intercourse with
Paul and others. Eusebius then takes up John again : " And of
the writings of John, besides the Gospel also the former of the
Epistles is acknowledged as undisputed both by the men of to-day
and by those still ancient. But the other two are disputed. But
the opinion as to the Revelation is still now drawn by the most
toward each side (that is : for and against). Nevertheless this
also shall receive a decision at a fit time from the testimony of the

2<5o THE CANON

ancients. Being at this point, it is fitting that we should sum up
the writings of the New Testament that have been mentioned."

[I] " And we must set first of all the holy four of the Gospels,
which the writing of the Acts of 'the Apostles follows. And after
this we must name the Epistles of Paul, and in connection with
them we must confirm the current First Epistle of John and likewise
the Epistle of Peter. In addition to these is to be placed, if that
appear perhaps just, the Revelation of John, about which we shall
in due time set forth what has been thought. And these are
among the acknowledged books."

[II] " And of the disputed books, but known then nevertheless
to many, the Epistle of James is current and that of Jude, and the
Second Epistle of Peter and the Second and Third named for John,
whether they happen to be of the Evangelist or of another of the
same name with him. Among the spurious [books] is the book of
the Acts of Paul to be ranged, and the so-called Shepherd, and
the Revelation of Peter, and besides these the current Epistle of
Barnabas and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles. And
further still, as I said, the Revelation of John, if it seem good,
which some as I said set aside, and others reckon among the
acknowledged [books]. And even among these [I do not think
this means among the " acknowledged " but among the " spurious "
books], some have counted the Gospel according to the Hebrews,
in which especially the Hebrews who have received Christ take
pleasure. And these would then be all of the disputed books
(Eusebius here brings the disputed and the spurious together as
"disputed"). But of necessity, nevertheless, we have made the
catalogue of these, distinguishing both the writings that are true
according to the Church tradition and not forged and acknow-
ledged, and the others aside from these, not testament- ed but
also disputed, yet known by most of the Church [officials ?], that
we may be able to distinguish these very books, and "

[III] "those brought forward by the heretics in the name of
the apostles, containing either Gospels, as of Peter and Thomas
and Mathias, or also of some others beside these, or Acts, as of
Andrew and John and the other apostles, which no man of the
Church [writers] according to the succession ever held worthy to
bring forward for memory in any way in a book. And further, in
a way also the character of the language which is different from
the apostolic habit, and both the opinion and the aim of what is

THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS— EUSEBIUS 26l

brought in them which are as widely as possible from agreeing
with true orthodoxy, clearly place before our eyes that they are
forgeries of heretical men. Hence they are not even to be
ranged among the spurious [books], but to be rejected as totally
absurd and impious."

The great question for us here is the precise opinion of
Eusebius as to the seven books for which we are seeking
witness. He has them all in his list. James and Second Peter,
and Second and Third John, and Jude are all among the
disputed books, but in the first part of them, the good part, and
not among the spurious books of the second part. Hebrews is
squarely treated as one of Paul's Epistles. The book of
Revelation is indeed put down among the acknowledged books,
but it has a doubtful vote attached to it, and it, it alone of all
the books, appears a second time, and that not in the first but in
the second, the spurious part of the disputed books.

As for James, after telling of his martyrdom he continues
(H. E. 2. 23) : "Such also is the affair touching James, of whom
the first of the Epistles that are named Catholic is said to be. It
must be understood that it is regarded as spurious — not many
then of the ancients mentioned it, as also not the so-called [Epistle]
of Jude, it also being one of the seven called Catholic, — yet we
know that these also are read publicly with the others in very
many churches." There he says that it is regarded as spurious,
which, however, is not the case in the list, which stands at a later
point in his history. If we turn to his other works we find that
Eusebius does not hesitate to quote James, calling him " the holy
apostle," or the words themselves "scripture." I know of no
quotations from Second Peter, Second and Third John, and Jude.
Hebrews, as we have seen, is fully accepted, and that as Paul's, even
though in one place in speaking of Clement of Alexandria's Carpets,
and observing that he quotes from the disputed books, he names as
such the Wisdom of Solomon, and that of Jesus Sirach, Hebrews,
Barnabas, Clement [of Rome], and Jude. It is, by the way,
interesting that he here calls Clement of Rome disputed, although
he does not give it any place at all in that exact list which we
have just read over.

As for Hebrews there, one might almost think it was a
momentary slip. At any rate, Eusebius quotes it often, and as
Paul's : " The apostle says," " the wonderful apostle." Paul had

262 THE CANON

written it, Eusebius thought, in Hebrew, and perhaps Luke, but
more likely Clement of Rome had translated it into Greek. The
book of Revelation evidently remained for him an object of
suspicion. The swaying hither and thither in his list showed that
his opinion was also "drawn towards each side," now for now
against the authority of this book. In one place (H. E. 3. 39) he
writes, speaking of the report that two graves of John were said to
be known at Ephesus : " To which it is necessary to give heed.
For it is likely that the second, unless anyone should wish the
first, saw the Revelation which is current in the name of John."
Curious it is that he even thrusts in as a parenthesis the choice
again of the apostle. He really in this case either did not know
his mind or had a dislike to stating too bluntly an opinion which
he knew that many would not like. The fact that he quotes it
less frequently than might have been expected looks as if he were
not inclined personally to accept it, and the same conclusion
follows from his form of quotation. We find for it not "the
wonderful apostle," but merely "the Revelation of John," or
"John." Eusebius then, in the first great list of books that we
have, gives us our New Testament of to-day, but with verbal
doubts as to the disputed book James that are pretty much
invalidated by his quoting it as if thoroughly genuine, — with no
verbal or quoting lessening of the disputed character of Second
Peter, or of Second and Third John, — with a slight confirmation
of the disputed character of Jude, — with a practical acceptance
of Hebrews by most reverent quoting of it, — and with a hesitat-
ing use of Revelation which agrees better with its being disputed
than with its being genuine, and which agrees with the tentative
assigning of it to the presbyter instead of to the Apostle John.

The Council of Nice in 325 does not appear to have
determined anything about scripture. It is true that Jerome
states that it "is said to have accounted Judith in the number
of the sacred scriptures," but he only gives hearsay for his
statement, and it may have been a misconception that led to the
supposition. During the discussions the scriptures served as
the armoury and munition store for all the members of the
council. Of the seven disputed books, only Hebrews seems to have
been quoted, and that as Paul's, in an answer of the bishops, to
a philosopher, by Eusebius (Migne, P. G. 85. 1276 A) : "As says
also Paul the vessel of choice, writing to Hebrews," and he

THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS— EUSEBIUS 263

quotes Hebrews 412- 13. Hebrews is quoted not rarely in the Acts
of this council. The only other reference that might touch the
disputed books" is the naming of the "Catholics," meaning the
Catholic Epistles: "And in the Catholics John the evangelist
cries," and Leontius, the bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, who
is speaking, quotes (MPG 85. 1285) 1 John 56. A chapter or
two later (MPG 85. 1297 C) he writes: "For he who has not
the Son, as it says in the Catholics, neither hath he the
Father." That is a very loose way of rendering : " Every one
who denieth the Son, neither hath he the Father," 1 John 228.
But this reference to the " Catholics " does not at all say surely
that all seven Catholic Epistles are in the collection. It is quite
likely that they are all in Leontius' hand and heart. Nevertheless
it would be possible for a man to speak in this way who only
had two Catholic Epistles, First Peter and First John. Moreover,
at a time at which the opinions about these seven books were
still somewhat uncertain, it would be perfectly possible for some
one member of the council to quote a book that some other
members would not have quoted, just as one might of set purpose
not quote a book that others would have quoted. But the '
council, as far as we can see, did not think of settling what books
belonged to the New Testament and what did not. It had other
work to do.

A few years later Constantine the emperor commanded
Eusebius to have fifty Bibles copied for him, of which we shall
speak when we come to the Criticism of the Text. He had not
probably any thought of a canonical determination of a series
of books. He merely wished to have some handsome and
appropriate presents for a few large churches. We have to-day
parts of two manuscripts of the Bible that may perhaps have been
among those fifty. However that may be, they were probably
written about that time. One of them is the Codex Sinaiticus,
of which the New Testament part is at Saint Petersburg, although
forty-three leaves out of it, containing fragments of the Old
Testament, are at Leipzig. This manuscript contains the four
Gospels, fourteen Epistles of Paul — because Hebrews is placed as
a Pauline Epistle between Thessalonians and Timothy, — the book
of Acts, the seven Catholic Epistles, Revelation, Barnabas, and a
fragment of the Shepherd. Therefore we find in it all the books
of our New Testament, and in addition Barnabas and Hermas.

264 THE CANON

It is even not impossible that some other books were originally
in it after Hermas. As observed above, Barnabas would probably
have been placed before Revelation had the one who caused it
to be copied intended to have it regarded as a part of the New
Testament. And Hermas, although of a somewhat dreamy,
apocalyptic nature, would probably also have been placed before
Revelation. I suppose that these two books were added because
they were often read in church as from : " Man to Man," and
because it was convenient to have them thus at hand. We must
return to this under Text. The other manuscript is the Vatican
manuscript at Rome. It contains in the New Testament the
four Gospels, the book of Acts, the seven Catholic Epistles, the
Pauline Epistles as far as Thessalonians, and Hebrews to 914,
where it unfortunately breaks off. Of course, it originally had
the pastoral Epistles after Hebrews, and it doubtless contained
also Revelation. Whether other books were in it or not we
cannot tell.

Cyril of Jerusalem, who was born in 315 and died in the
year 386, probably wrote his Catechetical Lectures about the
year 346. In them he naturally enough speaks of the divine
scriptures. The passage (4. 33-36) shows us at the same time
how he treated his hearers and readers, what tone he struck in
trying to fit their ears : " Learn then with love of wisdom also
from the Church what are the books of the Old Testament and
what of the New. The apostles and the ancient bishops were
much more prudent and better filled with foresight than the leaders
of the Church who handed these scriptures down to us. Thou
then, child, do not treat falsely the determinations of the Church.
And of the Old Testament, as is said, study the twenty-two books,
which if thou are diligent to learn hasten to store up in memory
as I name them to you." Then he gives the books of the Old
Testament. "And of the New Testament the four Gospels
alone. And the rest are forged and hurtful. The Manichaeans
also wrote a Gospel according to Thomas which by the fine sound
of the gospel name attached to it corrupts the souls of the more
simple. And receive also the Acts of the Twelve Apostles.
And in addition to these also the seven Catholic Epistles of
James and Peter, John and Jude. And the seal upon all,
and the last thing of disciples the fourteen Epistles of Paul.
And the rest let them all lie in a second place. And as

THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS— CYRIL OF JERUSALEM 265

many as are not read in churches, these neither read thou by
thyself as thou hast heard." The books that are not part of the
New Testament, but which may be read, are not named. The
book of Revelation is not one of the books of the New
Testament. That is the state of things at Jerusalem just before
the middle of the fourth century.

Up to this time, that is to say until well into the fourth
century, we have found no signs of a determination of a list of
the books of the New Testament by any gathering of Christians.
Marcion did make a list. But he was a single person and a
heretic. The nearest that we have come to it was Tertullian's
declaration that every council of the churches had judged the
Shepherd to be among the apocryphal and false books. That
looks as if these councils must have, or at least might have, at
the same time made a definite statement as to what was not
apocryphal and false, but in fact authoritative, public, and
genuine. But this conclusion is by no means necessary. For
the condemnation of the Shepherd may well have been uttered
in connection with special doctrinal or disciplinary determinations,
and have had nothing to do with the question of what books
belonged in general to the New Testament. At the first glance
it looks as if we were now to have at last a decision of a council.
The council of apparently the year 363 held at Laodicea in
Phrygia Pacatania, is sometimes urged as the first council that
made a list, published a list, of the books which properly belong
to the New Testament.

The name Council of Laodicea sounds very well, and the
untutored reader might imagine to himself an imposing array
of bishops, perhaps as many as the three hundred and eighteen
of the Council of Nice. Far from it. There were, we are
told, only thirty-two members of this council, and another
reading says only twenty-four. It can only have been a local
gathering, and in spite of the authority of the bishops in the
fourth century I should not be surprised if among the thirty-two
there had been some presbyters. It would seem likely that this
little council or synod was summoned to meet by a bishop of
Philadelphia named Theodosius, and that Theodosius had the
most to do with the determining the canons of the council. Fie
called the council then, and swayed it. He is said to have been
an Arian, but that was of no particular moment for the Questions

266 THE CANON

of order which were laid, and of course laid by him, before the
synod for decision.

The canon which interests us is the very last one, the
fifty-ninth. It begins thus : " That psalms written by private
persons must not be read in the church, nor uncanonized
books, but only the canonized ones of the New and Old
Testament." Thus far the canon is found in all accounts of the
council with but trifling variations. Of course, the "reading" of
a psalm might be the "singing" of the psalm. Such psalms are
not to be uttered in church. That is a decision akin to the old-
time rules of some Presbyterian Churches that nothing but the
psalms of the Old Testament should be sung in church. The
words uncanonized and canonized as applied to books remind us
of the word " testament-ed " that we have already sometimes met.
Now thus far we have no list of the books. But in some sources
for this canon it goes on : " How many books are to be read :
of Old Testament: i. Genesis of world. 2. Exodus from Egypt.
3. Leviticus. 4. Numbers. 5. Deuteronomy. 6. Jesus of Nave.
7. Judges, Ruth. 8. Esther. 9. First and Second Kings. 10.
Third and Fourth of Kings. 11. Chronicles, First and Second.
12. Ezra, First and Second. 13. Book of hundred and fifty
Psalms. 14. Proverbs of Solomon. 15. Ecclesiastes. 16. Song
of Songs. 17. Job. 18. Twelve Prophets. 19. Isaiah. 20.
Jeremiah and Baruch, Lamentations and Epistles. 21. Ezekiel.
22. Daniel. And those of the New Testament : Gospels four:
according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke,
according to John. Acts of Apostles. Catholic Epistles seven,
thus : of James one ; of Peter, First, Second ; of John, First
Second, Third ; of Jude one. Epistles of Paul fourteen : to
Romans one ; to Corinthians, First, Second ; to Galatians one ;
to Ephesians one ; to Philippians one ; to Colossians one ; to
Thessalonians, First, Second ; to Hebrews one ; to Timothy, First,
Second ; to Titus one, to Philemon one."

There we have a fair catalogue. All of the books of our New
Testament are in it save Revelation. If the Synod of Laodicea,
the thirty-two men, settled upon that list, it would be no great
thing, but it would be a little beginning of a fixed, a settled, a
decreed Canon. Unfortunately, when we examine the various
gourceg we must decide that this list was not a part of the canon
ipf laodicea. It was not very strange that the list should be added.

THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS— LAODICEA, ATHANASIUS 267

This was the last canon. We might almost suppose that the man
who first added the books did not dream of really making his
catalogue a part of the fifty-ninth canon. He may have said to
himself, considering the canon: "What must we read then?
Let me see. In the Old Testament there are these. In the
New Testament these." And writing them down there, the next
scribe who came to copy a manuscript from that one, again
thought no harm, thought innocently enough that all that really
belonged to the fifty-ninth canon, and copied it accordingly. We
are therefore still without a canon approved by a synod or a council.
But we can have almost at once a proclamation of a list that
is so very public, so very authoritative that it may for the time
replace a synod which we cannot yet get.

It was the habit of the Bishop of Alexandria to announce
the day on which Easter would fall by an Epistle. In the year
367, as it appears, Athanasius of Alexandria wrote his 39th
Festal Epistle, and gave a list of the books of the Bible.
" But since we have referred to the heretics as dead, and to us as
having the divine scriptures unto salvation, and as I fear, as
Paul wrote to the Corinthians, lest some few of the simp'e
may be led astray by deceit from simplicity and purity by
the wiles of men, and finally may begin to read the so-called
apocrypha, deceived by the likeness of the names to those of
the true books, I beg you to have patience if in alluding to
these things I write also about things that you understand, be-
cause of necessity and of what is useful for the Church. And
now about to recall these" — the scriptures — "I shall use as a
prop for my boldness the example (another reading is : the
passage, the verse) of the evangelist Luke, saying also myself:
Since some have turned their hand to draw up for themselves
the so-called apocrypha, and to mingle these with the inspired
writ, concerning which we are informed fully, as those handed it
down to the fathers who were from the beginning directly seers
and servants of the word, it seemed good also to me, urged by
true brethren, and having learned from time gone by, to set forth
in order from the first the books that are canonized and handed
down and believed to be divine, so that each, if he has been
deceived, may detect those who have misled him, and the one
remaining pure may rejoice at being put in mind of it again. So
then the books of the Old Testament are in number all told

268 THE CANON

twenty-two. For so many, as I heard, it is handed down that
there are letters, those among the Hebrews. And in order and
by name each is thus : first Genesis, then Exodus, then Leviticus,
and after this, Numbers, and finally, Deuteronomy. And follow-
ing on these is Jesus, the son of Nave and Judges, and after this
Ruth, and again following four books of Kings, and of these the
first and second are counted in one book and the second and
third likewise in one, and after these First and Second Chronicles,
likewise counted in one book, then First and Second Ezra, likewise
in one, and after these the book of Psalms and following Proverbs,
then Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs. In addition to these is
also Job and finally Prophets, the Twelve counted in one book.
Then Isaiah, Jeremiah, and with him Baruch, Lamentations,
Epistle, and after him Ezekiel, and Daniel. As far as these
stand the books of the Old Testament."

" And those of the New we must not hesitate to say. For
they are these : Four Gospels, according to Matthew, accord-
ing to Mark, according to Luke, according to John. Then
after these Acts of Apostles and so-called Catholic Epistles
of the apostles seven thus : Of James one, but of Peter two,
then of John three, and after these of Jude one. In addition
to these there are of Paul fourteen Epistles, in the order written
thus : first to the Romans, then to the Corinthians two, then also
after these to the Galatians, and following to the Ephesians, then
to the Philippians, and to the Colossians, and to the Thes-
salonians two. And the Epistle to the Hebrews, and following
to Timothy two, and to Titus one. And again John's Revela-
tion. These are the wells of salvation, so that he who thirsts
may be satisfied with the sayings in these. In these alone is the
teaching of godliness heralded. Let no one add to these. Let
nothing be taken away from these. And about these the Lord
shamed the Sadducees, saying : Ye err, not knowing the scrip-
tures or their powers. And he admonished the Jews : Search
the scriptures, for it is they that testify of Me. But for greater
exactness I add also the following, writing of necessity, that
there are also other books besides these, not canonized, yet
set by the Fathers to be read to (or by) those who have just
come up and who wish to be informed as to the word of
godliness : the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach,
and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, and the so-called Teaching

THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS— ATHANASIUS 269

of the Apostles, and the Shepherd. And nevertheless, beloved,
those that are canonized and these that are to be read [are
recommended to us, but] there is nowhere any mention of the
apocryphal books. But they are an invention of heretics, writing
them when they please, and adding grace to them and adding
years to them, so that bringing them out as old books they may
have a means of deceiving the simple by them."

The point of Athanasius' recounting the books of the Bible
is seen at the beginning and at the end. He is not in any
way trying to block off what Eusebius had published in his
Church History. He has the heretics and their writings in view
who concocted these books, as Athanasius thinks, to catch the
souls of simple Christians. The word " simple " is one of those
nice words which in debate can always be applied to the people
who do not think as you do. Tertullian was not a simple man,
an unlearned man easily to be led astray by any chance wind of
doctrine, but he became a heretic. And what shall we say of
the great Origen ? But no matter. Athanasius wishes to protect
the simple from the snares of the heretics. The heretics write
apocryphal books. He tells us what is "inspired scripture."
With this list in his hand the simple man can at once settle
the dispute with the heretic in favour of orthodoxy. We find
in the list our whole New Testament.

The notable advance upon Eusebius is, that now not a
single one of these books remains as a disputed book. They
are all on one level. Now that may be merely the Alex-
andrian view of the case. In Cassarea doubts may still prevail,
or in other churches. But for Alexandria the case is clear.
Clear as a bell is it also that Athanasius does not lay claim
to a decision of any general council for the canonizing of
these books. It would be possible, but it would not be likely,
that he should know of the decision of some small council in
favour of his books, of the books which he regarded as the true
ones, and yet not mention it. This consideration makes it all
the less likely that the Council of Laodicea had four years earlier
put forth the list that we looked at a few moments ago. Athanasius
accepts the Epistle to the Hebrews as Paul's. It seems almost
curious that a great bishop should for the moment leave the
preaching, the proclamation of the Gospel by word of mouth, the
living and breathing side of Christianity, so far out of sight. It is

270 THE CANON

the heretics that force him to it. Do the orthodox preach, so do
the heretics. But these divine books, they are something that
heresy cannot touch. Their imitation scriptures are of no avail.
These now called canonized books are the wells of salvation.
And now the process of choosing books has come to an end.

Perhaps Athanasius thinks of the words at the close of the
Revelation. He knows that the New Testament is full and
complete. No one may add anything to these books. Nothing
is to be taken away from them. And then he proceeds to add
something to them, but on a lower plane as second-class books.
Look at them : the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach —
which is by the way an exceedingly worthy book — Esther, Judith,
Tobit, the Teaching of the Apostles — which may be one of two
or three different books — and the beautiful dreams of the
Shepherd of Hermas. Strange, however, it is that a bishop
should say that this medley of books : Esther, Judith, Tobit
among them, should be especially commended to be read to or
by the new-comers. One would think that the new Christians
would need before all others the pure milk of the word. Yet this
part of the letter of Athanasius has a moral for us touching the
earlier times. Just such a statement as to second class books,
reaching back as far as Sirach, justifies my contention that the
Christians, like the Jews, have been reading all along in church,
as in the synagogue, books that were : Man to Man, not : God to
Man.

What books have now fallen away as compared with
Eusebius ? Turning to the spurious books of Eusebius, we miss
the Acts of Paul, the Revelation of Peter and Barnabas. The
letter of Clement, a letter scarcely inferior to some of the Epistles
of the New Testament, and fully equal to, or rather far above, the
Shepherd has fallen on all hands completely out of sight. How
is it that Athanasius has reached this point? Has there been
since Eusebius, and before Athanasius, any great discovery made
of new sources from the first or second century throwing a flood
of light upon the whole literature of the Christians, and enabling
Athanasius to say that all the Catholic Epistles are genuine, and
that Revelation is genuine, and that the other books are very bad
indeed ? Not at all. It is even quite possible that Athanasius
would have written just thus if he had published this letter in the
same year in which Eusebius published his Church History —

THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS— ATHANASIUS 27 1

only that he was not then bishop. Alexandria was not far from
Csesarea, and had been of old tied to it by many a bond. But
there had also been fierce battles between the two places, and
Alexandria had its own opinions, both in doctrine and in letters.
Nor must we forget that Alexandria, even through and in those
battles, had itself changed. That shows itself in Athanasius's list
in the total omission of Barnabas, which had once been so much
liked at Alexandria.

Twenty years ago Theodor Mommsen found a singular canon
in a Latin manuscript of the tenth century. It probably belongs
to an earlier date than Athanasius, but I let it stand here by
way of comparison. It appears to be from Africa. In the Old
Testament it counts the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of
Sirach among the books of Solomon, and it has Esther, Judith,
and Tobit, so that in that far it has a likeness to our Athanasius
list, though the latter put those books in an appendix. It differs
from Athanasius in adding Maccabees. In the New Testament
it goes its own way, and an odd way it is. Hebrews is altogether
lacking. Paul's Epistles number only thirteen. But the Catholic
Epistles appear in the following form, save that I omit the
number of the lines : the three Epistles of John, one only, the two
Epistles of Peter, one only. Those are in the manuscript in four
lines, in a column, divided by commas here. What does it
mean ? Of course, if we were positively determined to get from
this catalogue the seven usual Catholic Epistles we should say
that James was meant by the " one only " after John, and Jude
by the "one only" after Peter. That would indeed be an
extremely mild way of putting the scriptural character of James
and Jude before a reader. No other instance like it occurs in
the list.

The words look like the expression of two opinions in
the list, for it is totally impossible to imagine that the scribe
copying the list found a double mutilation, one for James and
one for Jude, each before "one only" and each without the
number of verses after "one only," and that he had no idea
of what two Epistles might belong there, and therefore left them
nameless. So ignorant a scribe among Christians is not to be
thought of. The scribe may have found the names of James
and Jude in the list, seeing that three Epistles of John and two
of Peter are there. But if he found them there he left them out

272 THE CANON

because he did not think they belonged there. He found then
three Epistles of John, with the number of verses in them. He
did not, however, believe at all that there should be three Epistles
of John. He thought that only First John was scripture. Why
did he then write "three Epistles," why did he not write "one
Epistle" and be done with it? The reason lay in the number of
the verses. He had the number for the three Epistles together,
and he could not tell precisely how many were to be subtracted
if he left out Second and Third John. Therefore he wrote the
three Epistles of John, and added the number of the lines. But
in order to save his conscience from the stain of calling Second
and Third John biblical he added "one only." The case was
then probably the same with the two Epistles of Peter. He only
acknowledged First Peter, and could not separate its lines or
verses from those of Second Peter. And thus he again wrote
two Epistles of Peter with their verses, and doggedly added there
below : " one only." We do not know, but it looks like that.
Now we see in what way this list has a certain claim to a place
at this point. It appears to give us a glimpse of a little skirmish
in the war of canonical opinions. The scribe had, it seems,
before him a manuscript which even may have had Hebrews in
it as a fourteenth Epistle of Paul, but which at anyrate had three
Epistles for John and two for Peter, and therefore probably
James and Jude as well. He is himself one of the strict old
school, and, if there were fourteen Epistles for Paul before him,
he took his pen and wrote thirteen, he dropped James and Jude,
and he only granted John and Peter one Epistle each.

What will the future bring? Will Eusebius' full list and
that of Athanasius now have full sway ? Will a general council
settle the books of scripture ? Will all doubt and all difference
cease ?

273

VI.

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA.

370-700.

The circle seems to be closing. We have a pair of full catalogues
of the New Testament books in our hands, one with a few doubts
clinging to it, one quite definite and sure. Now we must advance
through the years and ask what the writers and what the Churches
do in this matter. Whether they accept the full lists or whether
they demur ; we must have their vote, if we can find out what it is.
And we must look for a decision of a general council, settling
the matter for all Christendom.

Divisions overlap. We cannot cut up the lives of the authors
according to our divisions, arbitrary divisions. The first writer
whom we have to take up is Gregory of Nazianzus. The son
of a Bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, he studied at Caesarea in
Cappadocia, at Caesarea in Palestine, at Alexandria, perhaps ten
years at Athens, was once for an instant Bishop of Sasima, and
again for an instant Bishop of Constantinople as elected by the
general council of the year 381, and died in 389 or 390, having
been one of the very first rank as a Christian poet, orator, and
theologian. His opinion of scripture he uttered in a poem
(1. 1. 12). After the Old Testament he goes on : "And now count
[the books] of the New Mystery. Matthew wrote to the Hebrews
the wonders of Christ, and Mark to Italy, Luke to Greece, but
to all John, a great herald, walking in heaven. Then the Acts
of the wise apostles. And ten of Paul, and also four Epistles.
And seven Catholic, of which of James one, and two of Peter,
and three of John again, and Jude's is the seventh. Thou hast
all. And if there is anything outside of these, it is not among
the genuine [books]. That recalls to us the list by Cyril of
Jerusalem. All our books are there again, save the Revelation.
18

274 THE CANON

Gregory may stand for Asia Minor, but we see how wide a basis
he had in the long years of study in such widely separated cities.
If we turn to his writings there appear to be no references to
Second Peter, Second and Third John, and Jude, but he refers
four times to James, eight or nine times to First Peter, and twice
to First John. First John he names (Log. 31. 19) : "What now
John saying in the Catholics [the Catholic Epistles] that : Three
are those who bear witness, the spirit, the water, the blood." In
a dozen places Gregory quotes Old Testament passages which
are given in the Epistle of James and in First Peter, and he pro-
bably quotes them because they are familiar to him from these
Epistles, yet I let them pass, in order not to appear to press
the matter unduly. First Peter 2° would have to be named
seven times. First Peter and First John are also named here
because it has been supposed that Gregory did not use them.
He refers very often to Hebrews. The Revelation he quotes
once, and in another place he may have taken an Old Testa-
ment quotation from it. In one place he names it thus (Log.
42. 9): "As John teaches me by the Revelation." We see
then that in general Gregory's quotations may be brought into
harmony with his list, for it is not at all strange that he should
not happen to refer to Second and Third John, and not very
strange that he should have passed by Second Peter and its mate
Jude. Before leaving Gregory of Nazianzus it should be observed
that his poems fill a large part of his works, and that these are
not adapted to quotations.

The great friend of Gregory of Nazianzus was Basil the Great,
the Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. We might look for a
precisely identical use of scripture from these two. Certainly one
of them will often have used the books belonging to the other.
As for the seven books that were formerly disputed, Basil quotes
James twice, and Second Peter once, and the Revelation twice ;
of the two times, he once points to it as John's (To Eunom. 2. 14) :
" But the evangelist himself in another book (or another ' word ')
of such a kind, saying ' was ' showed what was meant : He that is
and was and the almighty." He is discussing the tense of " was "
in John i1 at length. Hebrews he quotes freely. I have not
noticed any quotations from Second or Third John or Jude. That
would not be strange, even if he had them in his hands. But it
is important to emphasise the difference between these two friends

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 275

in the use of First Peter and First John. Basil uses them often.
Gregory not often. The difference may be caused in part by
differences in topics treated, closely as the two were associated
with each other, not merely personally but also theologically.
Yet it may well be the case that the difference lies partly in what
I might term loosely a personal equation. I do not mean,
however, by that, that one of them would react at the chance
of a quotation more quickly than the other, but that one of them
may well have had, not precisely other likes and dislikes, but
other inclinations towards given books. The application of this
is that Gregory, although he had these books and accounted
them scripture, simply did not lean towards them so much as
Basil did, and therefore quoted them less frequently. The wider
application is, that we must be cautious in supposing that failure
to quote a book, however pat its sentences may seem to us to be
for an author's purpose, denotes that a writer does not know
of or directly refuses to quote the given book. Basil quotes
Second Peter once, where he had occasion to quote. The
occasion or his wish to intensify a preceding quotation might
easily have been lacking, and we should have heard suggestions
that he did not approve of this book.

Basil's brother, Gregory of Nyssa, will certainly have agreed
with his brother, and with their friend Gregory of Nazianzus in
the reception of the books of the New Testament. In his writings
I have not noticed any quotations from James, Second Peter,
Second and Third John, and Jude (I saw ten from First John
and twelve from First Peter). Hebrews he uses freely. He
appears really to quote the Revelation twice. Once he says of
it (Antirrh. 37) : "As says somewhere the word of the scripture,"
and quotes from Rev. 216 or 2213, or from a various reading of
i8. In the other case he writes (Address at his ordination) : " I
heard the evangelist John saying in apocryphal (here probably :
in lofty words, hard to understand) to such by an enigma, that
it is necessary with great accuracy always to boil in the spirit,
but to be cold in sin : For thou shouldst have been, he says,
cold or hot," Rev. 315.

Amphilochius, a Cappadocian by birth, a lawyer, and then
Bishop of Iconium in Lycaonia, wrote several books, but very
little of what he wrote has reached us. A poem to Seleucus,
which is sometimes found among the poems of Gregory of

276 THE CANON

Nazianzus (2. 7), was probably written by him : " Moreover, it
much behoves thee to learn this. Not every book is safe which
has gotten the sacred name of scripture. For there are, there are
sometimes, books with false names. Some are in the middle
and neighbours, as one might say, of the words of truth. Others
are both spurious and very dangerous, like falsely stamped and
spurious coins, which yet bear the inscription of the king, but
are not genuine, are made of false stuffs. On account of these
I shall tell thee each of the inspired books. And so that thou
mayest learn to distinguish well, I shall tell thee first those of the
Old Testament. The Pentateuch has the Creation [ = Genesis],
then Exodus, and Leviticus the middle book, after which
Numbers, then Deuteronomy. To these add Joshua and the
Judges. Then Ruth, and four books of Kings, and the double
team of Chronicles. Next to these First Ezra, and then the
Second. Following I shall tell thee the five books in verses, of
Job crowned in strifes of varied sufferings, and the book of
Psalms, a harmonious remedy for the soul ; and again, three of
Solomon the Wise, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.
To these add the twelve prophets, Hosea first, then Amos the
second, Micah, Joel, Abdiah, and Jonah the type of His three
days' passion, Nahum after them. Habbakuk, then a ninth
Sophoniah, both Haggai and Zachariah, and the double named
angel Malachi (double named because the Septuaginta put the
translation of Malachi — " angel " — in and let Malachi stay also).
After them learn the four prophets : the great and bold-speaking
Isaiah, and Jeremiah the merciful, and the mystical Ezekiel, and
last Daniel, the same in works and words most wise. To these
some add Esther. It is time for me to say the New Testament
books. Receive only four evangelists : Matthew, then Mark, to
whom add Luke a third, count John in time a fourth, but first in
height of teachings, for I call this one rightly a son of thunder,
sounding out most greatly to the Word of God. Receive Luke's
book, also, the second, that of the general (Catholic) Acts of the
Apostles. Add following the vessel of election, the herald of the
Gentiles, the Apostle Paul, who wrote wisely to the Churches
twice seven Epistles, of Romans one, to which it is necessary
to join on to the Corinthians two, and that to the Galatians,
and that to the Ephesians, after which that in Philippi, then the
one written to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 277

Timothy, and to Titus and Philemon, one to each, and to the
Hebrews one. And some say that the one to the Hebrews is
spurious, not saying well, for the grace is genuine. However
that may be, what remains ? Some say we must receive seven
Catholic Epistles, others three alone, — that of James one, and one
of Peter, and that of John one. And some receive the three
(that is of John), and in addition to them the two of Peter, and
that of Jude a seventh. And again some accept the Revelation
of John, but the most call it spurious. This would be the most
reliable (the most unfalsified) canon of the divinely inspired
scriptures." Here we have a bishop in Asia Minor, a mate of
the Gregories and of Basil, and yet he appears inclined to reject
Second Peter, Second and Third John, and Jude, and almost
certainly rejects Revelation. He himself accepts Hebrews, but
he knows that others do not. Here we have the word " canon "
used directly.

Didymus of Alexandria, who died about the year 395, wrote a
commentary to all seven of the Catholic Epistles, of which, how-
ever, only fragments, and that mostly in a Latin translation, have
been preserved. James he appears to have fully accepted. He
calls him an apostle of the circumcision like Peter. But he pro-
duces in the discussion of 2 Peter 35-8, which does not suit him,
a condemnation of the Epistle which seems to be drawn from
Eusebius, whom we above quoted (Migne, P. G. 39. 1774): "It
is therefore not to be overlooked that the present Epistle is
forged, which, although it is read publicly, is yet not in the
canon." He quotes James, and he refers to the Revelation
repeatedly as John's, so that he probably did not suppose that
another "John," but that the Apostle John, wrote it. Dionysius'
criticisms do not seem to have been accepted in his own town.

Epiphanius, the Bishop of Constantia or Salamis on Cyprus,
who died in the year 403, gives us a somewhat careless list which
undoubtedly contains all our books, although he does not say
precisely seven Catholic Epistles. He adds to the New Testa-
ment thus (Haer. 76) : " Revelation, and in the Wisdoms I say
both of Solomon and of the son of Sirach, and simply in all
the divine scriptures." He seems really to account these two
books as scripture. In his refutation of the heretics whom
he calls Alogi, he speaks several times of the Revelation as
from John the Evangelist.

278 THE CANON

A council at Carthage in the year 397 decreed a canon about
the reading in church (Can. 39) : " It is also settled that aside from
the Canonical Scriptures nothing is to be read in church under the
name of Divine Scriptures. Moreover, the Divine Scriptures are
these." Then follow the books of the Old Testament, including
Tobit, Judith, Esther, and Maccabees, and the books of the New
Testament. I call attention to the fact that nothing else is to
be read in Church under the name of scripture, and recall the
distinction between : God to Man, and : Man to Man. We
must further observe the use of " canonical." In the records the
following is attached to this canon : " Let this also be made
known to our brother and fellow-priest Boniface, or to other
bishops of those parts, for the sake of confirming this canon,
because we have received from the fathers that these are to be
read in Church. It is, moreover, to be allowed that the passions
of the martyrs be read when their anniversary days are celebrated."
The reference to Boniface, who did not become Bishop of Rome
until 418, is probably due to the person who superintended the
codifying of the canons of a series of the Carthaginian councils,
possibly in the year 419. The other statement, that the acts
of the martyrs may be read on their days, confirms what was
said a moment ago. That was : Man to Man. It did not
come under the name of Divine Scripture.

Lucifer of Cagliari on Sardinia, who died in the year 370,
does not, so far as I have observed, quote James or Second Peter
or Third John or Revelation, but then he also fails to quote
Mark and Philemon, so that the lack of quotations proves
nothing. He does quote Second John three times (Migne, P. L.
*3- .780-790). Once he says: "So also when the blessed John
orders," and again : " Therefore also the apostle says in this
Second Epistle." He quotes Jude four times close together,
and that fourteen verses out of Jude's twenty-five. And he
quotes Hebrews as Paul's (MPL 13. 782-784): "Showing an
example of whose reprobation Paul says to the Hebrews," and
there follow fourteen verses, and then three more. He does
not happen to give us anything from the Revelation, but his
pupil or adherent Faustinus does. Faustinus refers to Hebrews
three times as a letter of Paul's, and he also calls it Divine
Scripture. He quotes the Revelation by name (De trin. 3. 1) :
" But also the Apostle John says this in the Revelation."

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 279

Pacianus quotes Hebrews as Paul's, and so does Pelagius.
Hilary of Rome quotes it in connection with other matter from
Paul, but does not say exactly that it is his ; doubtless he thought
so. Julius Hilarianus about the year 397 quotes the Revelation
by name. Zeno of Verona quotes apparently Second Peter, and
possibly Hebrews. The Revelation he names as John's.
Optatus, the Bishop of Milevis, in Numidia, who flourished
about the year 370, quotes curiously enough an Epistle of
Peter by name, but the words are not found in the Epistles
bearing Peter's name. They are more like James 411 than any-
thing else. He writes (De schisma Don. 1. 5) : "Since we have
read in the Epistle of Peter the Apostle : Do not judge your
brethren by opinion." That may serve as a warning against
treating quotations too strictly. No one will think of saying
that Optatus here intends to declare some apocryphal book to
be scripture. It is interesting further to see that he in more
than one place uses the word Testament apparently for both
Testaments : " The Divine Testament we read alike. We pray
to one God."

John Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed preacher from Antioch
who became Bishop of Constantinople, was preeminently a man
of the scriptures. Even his homilies show his philological care-
fulness and his clear insight. His testimony stands properly for
Syria, where he did his first work. He was born at Antioch
in 347, and died in the year 407. But he wielded also in and
from Constantinople during his brief and eventful work there
a wide influence. His homilies are by far the most diligently
copied works of the early and of the late Greek Church. If
we see to-day in a library of Greek manuscripts a fine folio
volume, if we find in the binding of a manuscript a beautifully
written parchment leaf, the first thought of an experienced
scholar is : It is probably Chrysostom. It usually is. He
refers to the Epistle of James "the Lord's brother," but he
appears not to make any use of Second Peter, Second and
Third John, and Jude. Hebrews he considers to be Paul's.
The Revelation he does not quote. Notwithstanding this
failure to cite from five of the seven doubted books, Suidas says,
when speaking of the Apostle John, that " Chrysostom receives
both his three Epistles and the Revelation." I must confess that
I do not lay any great stress upon this testimony of Suidas. A

280 THE CANON

line or two before he lets the Apostle John live a hundred and
twenty years, a totally improbable statement, one without the
least foundation in the known traditions of the early Church,
and one which would without doubt have been commemorated
if true in the Church of Asia Minor, and have been known to
thousands before Suidas published it in the tenth century. I
could much more easily believe that Chrysostom received all
three of the Epistles of John and the Revelation than I could
believe that John had lived to be a hundred and twenty years
old without its being mentioned by Polycarp or Papias or some
one else in the second century. But I put no great faith in one
or the other statement.

There is not the least reason, that I can see, to think that
Chrysostom quoted Second Peter in his homilies on John. The
words are much nearer the passage in Proverbs. At the same
time we have in the bishop of Helenopolis — the birthplace of
Constantine's mother — Palladius, a friend of Chrysostom's, who
wrote a dialogue " On the life and conversation of the sainted
John, bishop of Constantinople, Golden Mouth," and in this work
he quotes both Third John and Jude. He writes (Galland, 8.
313): "About which things Jude the brother of James says,"
and adds Jude 12. And again (Gall. 8. 322): "As the
blessed John writes in the Catholic Epistles to Gaius," and he
quotes 3 John 1_3 and 9- 10, n. That is Asia Minor. And on
the other side of the Antioch line we find in a chain — a catena —
that Eusebius of Emesa, now Horns, about 150 kilometres north
of Damascus, quoted Second Peter (Wolf, Anecd. Gr. 4. 96) :
"Wherefore the apostle says in the Catholic (Epistle) : Speech-
less beast," 2 Peter 216. It is interesting that merely those
two apparently indifferent words should have caused the reference
to that Epistle, and should have been handed down to us
through that chain. A Synopsis of scripture which is placed
in the editions of the works of Chrysostom gives a very full
descriptive list of the Old Testament books, and then disposes
of the New Testament books as well known quite briefly. It
gives fourteen Epistles of Paul, four Gospels, Acts, and three
Catholic Epistles. That last can only be applied to James,
with First Peter and First John.

We mentioned above a bishop of Asia Minor, a friend of
Chrysostom's. There is still another and a more important one,

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 28 1

namely Theodore. He was born at Antioch about the year
350. At first a priest in Antioch from 383 onwards, he was
made Bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia in 392 and died in 4.28.
He was what would be called to-day a historical critical exegete,
and the Church condemned him as a heretic, and did all it could
to remand his valuable writings to oblivion, although he was the
most important scholar who had appeared since the days of
Origen. He wrote commentaries on Matthew, Luke, John, and
the fourteen Epistles of Paul. These books he acknowledged.
It is hard to say with certainty what his position was with respect
to the Catholic Epistles. Summing up as well as can be done,
in view of the fragmentary condition of his literary remains, it
seems likely that he rejected James, Second and Third John,
Jude, and Revelation, and accepted First Peter and First John.
Another bishop, Theodoretus, was also born at Antioch. He
was the bishop of Kyros on the Euphrates. So far as we can see
he agreed with Chrysostom.

We have from Junilius — who has been supposed to be an
African bishop, but who now appears to have been by birth an
African, and by office one of the highest members of state in
Constantinople — an account of the view of the New Testament
books at Nisibis in the sixth century. Junilius died soon after
550. He gives at first only First Peter and First John as
Catholic Epistles, but says afterwards that a great many people
accept also James, Second Peter, Jude, Second and Third John.
Hebrews stands as Paul's. And of Revelation he says that it is
a matter of much doubt among the Orientals.

If Junilius was really a statesman we can cap him with
another, and that a greater one. Cassiodorius was prime minister
under Theodoric, and then devoted himself to his monks in his
monastery, Vivarium in Bruttium, in Calabria. In his handbook of
theology for his ascetes he gave three differently arranged lists of
the New Testament books in three succeeding chapters. The
first one is said to be from Jerome, though we do not find it in
Jerome's works, the second is from Augustine, and the third is from
what Cassiodorius calls the " old translation." This third list does
not name Second Peter or Second and Third John. It probably
includes Hebrews silently as Paul's, and it has Revelation.
This book was apparently much used in the West, but that
omission or those omissions of the third list will probably not

282 THE CANON

have had the least influence upon anyone. The " old transla-
tion " may not have had those books in Cassiodorius' volumes,
but the books were in vogue in the current translation, and that
was enough for the thoroughly uncritical mind of the average
monk or priest. The Codex Claromontanus gives us in the list
above referred to James, Second Peter, Second and Third John,
Jude, and Revelation. The omission of Philippians, First and
Second Thessalonians, and Hebrews is probably merely a clerical
error of a copyist.

Two men in the West call for special remark : the one because
of his intense occupation with the scriptures, the other because
of his importance in the Church of his day and of the following
centuries. These are Jerome and Augustine. Jerome was not
of the great mental power of Theodore of Mopsuestia, for
example, but he was of good parts, travelled widely, studied
diligently, owned his debt to his distinguished predecessors from
whose works he drew, and he worked enormously. Augustine
was locally and in his studies much more limited, but he made
up for that by a keenness of perception, a breadth of mental
range, a fixedness of purpose, and a force of communicating his
thoughts which have made him the leader and the resource of
Western Christianity from the fifth century to the twentieth.

Jerome was by birth of a Christian family in Pannonia, and
saw the light about the year 346 at Stridon. He studied at
Rome, then travelled north as far as Trier, then to the East, where
in the year 373, as one of the consequences of a severe illness, he
determined to devote himself to the study of the scriptures.
After spending five years in the desert, having been ordained
presbyter at Antioch in the year 379, having visited Constantinople
to hear Gregory of Nazianzus, and having stayed three years
(382-385) at Rome, he returned to the East, to Antioch, to Egypt,
and finally to Bethlehem, where he passed the rest of his life :
386-420. What concerns us most is his revision of the Latin
translation of the New Testament, of which he handed the
Gospels to the Bishop of Rome, Damasus, in the year 384.
Perhaps he completed the rest — he did not do it so carefully as
the Gospels — a year later. This New Testament contained the
books which we use, and as it little by little came to be the chief
Latin copy, its books became the accepted books of the Western
Church. Nevertheless, with his encyclopaedic view of Christi-

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 283

anity he knew very well the doubts that had been raised as to
some books, and he referred to them upon occasion.

Oddly enough, he shows by a most trifling circumstance that he
considered Barnabas almost if not quite a New Testament book.
That came about as follows. With his knowledge of Hebrew he
drew up at Bethlehem in the year 388 a list of the Hebrew names
in the scriptures, giving their meaning, book by book. Therefore
every book in the New Testament comes into the list, save
Second John, which does not happen to contain any name ;
Third John is in the list sometimes called Second John, because
it here is the second Epistle of John's that is mentioned. Of
course, that does not mean that he rejected Second John. And
then at the end of the New Testament he gives thirteen names
from Barnabas, winding up with Satan. That was or is almost a
canonising of Barnabas for him. He was a great defender of
Origen's, and therefore closely bound to Alexandria, and this high
estimation of Barnabas was probably a result of his imbibing the
Alexandrian special valuation of that book.

Here and there we can find references to the case of the
seven doubtful books. Speaking of James, "who is called the
brother of the Lord," he says (De vir. ill. 2) : " He wrote only
one Epistle, which is one of the seven Catholics, and which very
letter is asserted to have been published by somebody else under
his name, although by degrees as time goes on it has gained
authority." As for Second Peter, he has a special suggestion
(Ep. 120): "Therefore he [Paul] used to have Titus as his in-
terpreter"— interpreter here means also scribe, — "just as also the
sainted Peter had Mark, whose Gospel was composed by Peter's
dictating and his writing. Finally also, the two letters of Peter's
which we have differ from each other in style and character and
in the structure of the words. From which we perceive that he
used different interpreters." And in another work, speaking of
Peter he says (De vir. ill. 1) : "He wrote two Epistles which are
called Catholic, of which the second is by many denied to be his
because of the difference of style from the former." Second and
Third John do not seem to him to be from the apostle. He
does not state, as in the case of James, Second Peter, and Jude,
that the given author " wrote " them. In his account of John
he says (De vir. ill. 9): "But he wrote also one Epistle, . . .
which is approved by all churchly and very learned men. But

284 THE CANON

the other two . . . are said to be from John a presbyter." He
writes of Jude (De vir. ill. 4) : " Jude, the brother of the Lord,
left behind a little Epistle which is of the seven Catholics. And
because it quotes the book of Enoch which is apocryphal it is
rejected by a great many. Yet by age even and custom it has de-
served authority, and it is reckoned among the sacred scriptures."

The remaining two books are spoken of by Jerome in a letter
to a patrician, Caudianus Postumus Dardanus, written in the
year 414, and the passage is very instructive, in view of the
opposition to Hebrews in the Western Church (Ep. 129):
"That is to be said to our friends, that this Epistle which is
inscribed to the Hebrews is received not only by the Churches of
the East, but also by all Church writers of the Greek tongue
before our day, as of Paul the Apostle, although many think that
it is from Barnabas or Clement. And it makes no difference
whose it is, since it is from a churchman, and is celebrated in the
daily reading of the Churches. And if the usage of the Latins
does not receive it among the Canonical Scriptures, neither indeed
by the same liberty do the Churches of the Greeks receive the
Revelation of John. And yet we accept both, in that we follow
by no means the habit of to-day, but the authority of ancient
writers, who for the most part quote each of them, not as they
are sometimes accustomed to do the apocrypha, and even also as
they use rarely the examples of the profane books, but as canonical
and churchly." Twenty years earlier, in a letter to Paulinus, about
the study of the scriptures, Jerome said (Ep. 53): "Paul the
Apostle wrote to seven Churches, for the eighth to the Hebrews
is put by many outside of the number."' That is less decided.
He had become more clearly in favour of the authenticity between
394 and 414. Jerome was no incisive critic. He was in general
a vain and quarrelsome man, but he acquiesced calmly in the list
of books for the New Testament which were then in use. The
nearest approach to personal dissent seems to be the view of
Second and Third John. But those Epistles were on the one
hand minimal quantities, and on the other hand they might well
come under the delightfully liberal rule for canonisation that
Jerome gives in speaking of Hebrews.

Jerome's friend Augustine, who was born in the year 354 at
Tagaste in Numidia, and after a wild youth and a heretical and
half-heathen early manhood was baptized at Milan in 387,

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 285

returned to Africa an ardent Christian, and became assistant
Bishop of Hippo in 395. He too accepted in a way the books
now in our New Testament. He said that the Christian must
read them, and at first know them at least by the reading even if
he cannot comprehend them, but only the books called canonical.
The other books are only to be read by one who is well grounded
in the faith of the truth. But he shows after all that he
recognised grades in value among the canonical books. The
Christian reader (De doctr. Chr. 2. 12): "Will hold fast there-
fore to this measure in the Canonical Scriptures, that he place
in the front rank those which are received by all Catholic Churches
before those which some do not receive. Among those, more-
over, which are not received by all, let him prefer those which
more and more important Churches accept to those which
fewer and less authoritative Churches hold. Should he, however,
find some to be held by very many and others by very weighty
Churches, although this cannot easily happen, yet I think that
they are to be regarded as of equal authority."

In his list of the books he puts James at the end of the
Catholic Epistles, thus giving Peter the first place. But all the
seven doubtful books stand unquestioned in his list. It is
perfectly clear that he has a certain feeling of hesitancy with
respect to the Epistle to the Hebrews. He says in the list, it
is true, that there are fourteen Epistles of Paul's, and Hebrews
follows as the fourteenth after Philemon. But when he quotes
it, it turns out that in his later works he avoids with painful
accuracy saying that Paul wrote it. He quotes it and therefore
he doubtless thinks it canonical, and he once calls it directly
" Holy Scripture," but he does not know who wrote it. He
says : " As we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews," " As is
written," " Which is written," " Who writing to the Hebrews said,"
"Tell it to him who wrote to the Hebrews," "This, moreover,
therefore said the author of that sacred Epistle," " In the Epistle
to the Hebrews which the distinguished defenders of the Catholic
rule have used as a witness." Curiously enough, Julian the
Pelagian, against whom Augustine writes, does ascribe Hebrews
to Paul (Aug. contr. Jul. 3. 40) : " The Apostle understood this
type of speech, who spoke as follows to the Hebrews." As for
the Kevelation, Augustine (Serm. 299) once suggested the pos-
sibility that his opponent, a Pelagian, may not accept it : " And

286 THE CANON

if by chance thou who likest these [heretical] things shouldst not
accept this scripture [a quotation from Revelation], or, if thou
accept, despise and say : They are not expressly named."

Jerome and Augustine settled the matter of the number of
the books of the New Testament for the orthodox circles in the
Western Church so far as there may have lingered in it here and
there doubts as to some of the books. But we shall see in a
moment that in heretical circles other opinions ventured to
continue. We saw above that certain books which do not belong
to our New Testament were long favoured in the West even in
thoroughly churchly provinces. In Spain, after the reconciliation
of the Western Goths with the Church, their dislike to the
Revelation evidently continued to show itself. In consequence
the Council of Toledo, in the year 633, declared that the ancient
councils stood for the authorship of the Revelation on the part
of the evangelist John. It added in a sentence, which neverthe-
less appears to be of doubtful authenticity, that many regard it
as of no authority and refuse to preach from it. The decree of
the council was (Mansi, 10. 624): "If anyone henceforth either
shall not have accepted it, or shall not have preached from it
from Easter to Whitsuntide at the time of mass in the church,
he shall have the sentence of excommunication."

Here we may close our view of the criticism of the canon. The
one great result is that which has not come to the surface during
the whole discussion. We have not said anything about a
determination of the books which belong to the New Testament
on the part of a general council of the Christian Church. We
could say nothing about such a determination, because there never
was one. Now and then a local or partial council ratified the
statements of some preceding Church writer.

The criticism of the canon shows, then, that in the sense in
which the word used to be understood, and is by some to-day
still understood, there never was a canon. At no period in the
history of Christianity did the necessity make itself apparent to
the whole Church to say just what was and just what was not
scripture. Tertullian mentioned synods, which can only have
been small local synods, that rejected the Shepherd of Hermas,
but he spoke of none which had stated what the books of the
New Testament were. He spoke of the Jews as rejecting

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 287

certain things in the Old Testament " which sound out Christ,"
and gave thus a pleasing rule for the correctness of biblical
literature. But he did not lay this down as a canon, or say that
it had been universally and authoritatively sanctioned. Augustine,
the sound churchman, declared that the scriptures depend from
the Church. He even went so far as to say in the contest against
the half heathenish Manichasans : " I indeed should not believe
in the Gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not
press me to it." It is true that Christianity is a life, and that
this life lives on in the Church. Yet this life is the Gospel. It is
nothing without the Gospel. It seems to me, therefore, that this
excited word of Augustine's was all in all a frivolous word. It is
upon a par with the foolishness of those Christians who to-day
declare in theological controversy that if the contention of their
opponents, Christian opponents, be proved true, they will give
up the Bible. And yet even this Augustine could not point to
an authoritative deliverance of the whole Church touching the
books of scripture. More than that, although he, with Jerome,
proved in a way the surcease of doubts as to books now in our
New Testament, he nevertheless really put down two points which
are altogether incompatible with the notion that, let us say, by
the time of Irenseus the canon of the New Testament was for all
good orthodox Christians a definitely settled fact.

The first point touches, in the first place, the fact that he does
not regard the books of the New Testament as all of equal
authority, as having each and all of them the same right to be in
the collection. In the second place, it decides definitely that
they have not each and all equal authority and value. In the third
place, it does not refer the decision upon the quality, character,
authority, and canonical standing of the separate books to ancient
and acknowledged councils and their decrees. In the fourth place,
it refers the decision to a majority vote, a vote which combines
numbers and authority. In the fifth place, the judge who is to
decide is not a council then in session, or soon to be gathered
together, but the Christian reader. In the sixth- place, he puts
before our eyes, taken strictly, five classes of books. — A. The
books accepted by all churches. J3. The books rejected by
some churches. A. remains a class for itself. B. is divided into
four possible classes, although he scarcely thinks that the two
last classes will really come into consideration. B.a. contains

288 THE CANON

the books that many and important churches accept. The
"important" churches in Augustine's eyes are those that have
apostolical bishops' seats : Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and those
that received Epistles from apostles. B.b. comprises the books
that are accepted by fewer and by less important churches. B.C.
comprises the books that are received by a great many, — that is to
say, by the majority of the churches, but without the important
churches. Whereas B.d. includes the books that but a few,
it is true, yet those the important churches, accept. According
to Augustine's view, of course, the A. class is to be accepted and
to be regarded as of the highest authority. The B. class is to be
thought less authoritative. Going to the under-divisions of the B.
class, B.a. is to be accepted, the books in B.b. are to be
rejected. The case is more difficult between B.C. and B.d.,
between multitude and knowledge or insight. Augustine knows
how to solve the problem. The decision is : "I think they are
to be held to be of equal authority." That is a curiously
indefinite canonical decision for the fifth century. That is the
first point. The second point is the great one, but it demands
no discussion. It is the fact that Augustine thus really tells us
that he regards the number of the books in the New Testament
as not yet settled. It is still a question whether this or that book
belongs to the fully authoritative New Testament or not. There
is no canon in the technical sense of the word.

But we have a New Testament, and the Christian Church of
Europe and America supposes it to consist in all parts of the
world of the same books, of the books, of course, which we use.
That supposition is the result of what might be called a half-
unconscious process of closing the eyes to the testimony of
history.

When the great mental upturning of the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries took place, many Christians saw clearly how
precarious the standing of the seven disputed books was, of
James, Second Peter, Second and Third John, Jude, Hebrews,
and Revelation. Ever prudent Erasmus aimed his judicious
questionings — which were interwoven with assurances of willing
acceptance of the books — at Hebrews, Second and Third John,
and Revelation. Luther declared freely that five books, John,
Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and First Peter, were enough
for any Christian ; yet, while he received the books of the New

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 289

Testament in general, he boldly put Hebrews, the " straw-like "
James, Jude, and Revelation in a lower class. Karlstadt made
three groups of books. The Gospels formed the first. The second
consisted of the thirteen Epistles of Paul with First Peter and
First John. And the third contained the seven disputed books.
Oecolampadius stated that James, Second Peter, Second and
Third John, Jude, and Revelation were not to be compared to
the rest, which was equivalent to putting them in a much lower
second class. Calvin discussed the disputed books quite freely.
He actually accepted everything in a way. Nevertheless he
showed that he was not overmuch pleased with James and
Jude, and not much pleased with Second Peter. And in his
commentary he left out Second and Third John and Revela-
tion, and called First John "the Epistle of John." Grotius,
who died in 1645, accepted Hebrews as probably written by
Luke, and James and Revelation as John's. But he regarded
Second Peter as a brace of Epistles — the first = chs. 1. 2,
the second = ch. 3 — written by James' successor, Simeon, the
second bishop of Jerusalem. He did not think that Second
and Third John were from John. And he supposed that Jude
had been written by a bishop of Jerusalem named Jude, who
lived under Hadrian.

That was all very well. Such discussions showed progress
and not a retrograde movement. They revivified tradition.
But there were, on the other hand, motives rife which made a
greater definiteness seem desirable. Rome and her offshoots
sought for decisions. It was to them immaterial whether or not
they were true to history. They wished a firm basis for their
arguments in an immovable Word.

Rome wished on her part to stand up for that Word which
the Reformers were placing in the foreground, and desired to
sanction a form of it agreeable to herself. Therefore the Council
of Trent, on the 8th of April 1546, made the Old Testament,
including the now fully normative Apocrypha, and the complete
New Testament a matter of faith. It even went so far as to
make the Latin text, which its leaders used, the " authentic " text
of the Bible. The insufficient insight of those who guided that
decision was shown by the fact that the papal edition of that
" authentic " text was so bad as to need speedy and shamefaced
replacement by a somewhat better though far from excellent
19

290 THE CANON

papal edition. We must remember, however, that the Council
of Trent was no general council. So much for the Church of
Rome. Its position received a curious side-light from Sixtus of
Siena twenty years after the council. Sixtus in the year 1566
put the seven disputed books as well as three sections of the
text of other books into a second-class canon. Antonio a Matre
Dei of Salamanca followed Sixtus in the year 1670 and added
another passage to the list.

It might have been thought that the Churches of the Re-
formation would retain a free position over against the criticism
of the canon. Not at all. It is true that they did not allow
the great authority of the Church to compel their acceptance of
the books. They declared that the free spirit of the Christian
recognised the genuine work of the Divine Spirit in these holy
books and in their use. Yet they were not content to leave the
books to care for themselves. They followed the lead of Rome
and declared the whole New Testament for undoubted scripture,
as, for example, the Westminster Assembly of 1643 and the Swiss
Declaration of Faith of 1675. The latter went so far as to say
that in the Old Testament the Hebrew consonants and even —
imagine it — the Masoretic vowel-points (or at least their force)
were inspired. Thus everything was slurred over. The seven
disputed books had become indisputable. From that day to this
the questioning of the authenticity of one of the New Testament
books has even in Protestant circles called forth the Anathema
set by the Council of Trent upon that crime.

In spite of all that, there never was an authoritative,
generally declared and generally received canon. To the
supposition that a canon exists is to be said : firstly, that
the supposed state of affairs is, strictly taken, not the real state
of affairs; and secondly, that the thing which produced the
actual, not the supposed, state of affairs was no single circum-
stance, no historical single event, but a series of causes working
in one district in one way, in another district, land, church in
another way.

The supposed state of affairs is not the real state of affairs.
In the Ethiopic Church, for example, we find in the manuscripts
for the number of the books of the Bible : eighty-one. Of these,
forty-six belong to the Old Testament, which does not now
concern us. The New Testament consists of thirty-five books,

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 2QI

or of our twenty-seven and of eight which come under the head
of Clement and the Synodos. That is a surplus. In the Syrian
Church, Second Peter, Second and Third John, Jude, and the
Revelation were practically no part of the New Testament.
Here we have a minus. That is of itself enough. But it is
generally supposed that at least the great Greek Church, the
mother of all Churches except the Church in Jerusalem, had
and has the whole of our New Testament. In a way that might
be affirmed. The Revelation stands in the lists of books on
many a page. And it has been commented upon at least by
two Greek authors, hard put to it as we are when we try to say
precisely when Andrew and Arethas of Caesarea lived, one
probably at the end of the fifth century, the other possibly at
almost the same date, but using his predecessor's book. But
as a matter of fact the Revelation belongs, of course not to the
Gospel, but just as little to the Apostle of the Greek Church,
and only what is in the Gospel and the Apostle is read in church
as Holy Scripture. Turning that around and putting it blankly,
the Revelation has never had, has not to-day, a place among
the Bible lessons of the Greek Church.

Further, it is to be urged in the same direction that the
Revelation in a large number of cases in the manuscripts which
contain it does not stand among the books of the New Testa-
ment. There are a few, comparatively a very few, Greek manu-
scripts which contain our whole New Testament, — that is to say,
which contain the other books and the Revelation. But the other
books are commonly copied off without the Revelation. The
continuation or the other side of this circumstance is to be found
in the fact that Revelation often stands in the middle of volumes
that have no other biblical contents. We do not often find the
four Gospels or the Acts, or the Catholic Epistles, or the Epistles
of Paul in volumes of profane, that is to say, not scripture litera-
ture ; but we do often find the Revelation in such volumes. For
example, one manuscript contains lives of saints, the Acts of
Thomas, and then theological treatises, and Revelation stands
between the life of Euphrosyne and an essay of Basil's on love to
God. Various of the manuscripts which contain only the Revela-
tion are the quires containing Revelation taken out from the
middle of some such general theological book (see pp. 369, 383).

It would, I think, be no great exaggeration to say that the

292 THE CANON

printing of the Greek New Testament formed the most important
step for the practical association of the Revelation with the other
books of the New Testament. But that remark must not be
supposed to have effect with the Greek Church. The printed
New Testaments of Western Europe had, have had, have to-day,
so far as I can judge from actual vision, very little or almost nothing
to do with the Church of the East. The printed Gospels and
Apostles have held the ground there, neither one of them with the
Revelation. And it is pertinent to mention here another thing
which recalls our earlier allusions to the reading in the churches.
During all the centuries and still to-day a number of books which
form no part of our New Testament are read in church in the
Greek Church under our division : Man to Man. Some of them,
certainly one of them, for I remember at this moment John
of the Ladder, are read yearly at a given time, the Ladder during
Lent. But enough of this. The supposed state of affairs is
not the real state of affairs. The British and Foreign Bible
Society and the Roman College for Propagating the Faith are
gradually spreading abroad our New Testament. But neither
the one nor the other is a General Council authorised to settle
the canon.

No single historical act or event brought about the supposed
but not actually universal determination of the books which we
have in our New Testament as constituting, they alone and they
all, the second part of Holy Scripture. No apostle, not even
the Nestor John, settled the canon. There was no settled canon
at the time of the consolidation of the Catholic Church shortly
after the middle of the second century. No fixed canon guided
the scriptural studies of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers
who composed the Council of Nice. And all the few and
scattered statements and lists of books accepted and disputed
and spurious failed in reality to secure one universally
acknowledged New Testament of exactly the same contents.
Nevertheless the truth, the Church, Christianity cannot be said
to have suffered by this lack. Even fewer books than the
Syrian Church recognised would have been enough to herald
the teaching of Jesus and to sustain, so far as it was desirable
that written records should sustain, the life that has flowed
in an unbroken stream from Jesus until to-day.

Let us for an instant press this thought. The books that we

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 293

call New Testament were certainly for the most part in existence
before the year 100. The Gospels and the letters of Paul form
the two greatest divisions of this collection. One or more of the
Gospels or a combination of all four of them, — which was the most
decided recognition of the four, — and some of the letters of Paul
were at an early date, long before the year 200, to be found
in the Church of every Christian district. The multiplication
of the books, both the recopying repeatedly of one book and
the addition in church after church of a new book, an Epistle
or a Gospel, or the Acts or the Revelation, was not taken in hand
by a Bible society or a council or a synod, or even so far as
we can see by a single bishop, much as we may easily imagine
that one and another bishop took especial interest in having his
books, the books used in his church, spread abroad through
other churches, and in having as many books as possible
added to those already in use in his own church. Some-
thing of that kind we saw in the case of the letters of Ignatius
and the letters about copies of them between Philippi and
Smyrna and Antioch. Little by little the list of the books in
each church grew.

The Church did not at first consider it necessary to issue de-
crees about the books. The books were something subsidiary.
They were all good enough. They were like daily bread, and like
rain for the thirsty land. But it was not necessary to decree
anything about them. Finally, one and another really reflected
upon the matter, and some lists were made. Some of the earlier
lists tried to be very precise and to determine best books, a trifle
less good books, poorer and poorest books. And then in later
time followed lists that aimed at fulness. The list that is named
after Gelasius and then after Hormisdas might be entitled : a
list of the books which should form the library of the Christian.
Inasmuch, however, as few Christians had the money to buy
such a large library, we could name the list : a catalogue of the
books from which the Christian should choose his library.
There was then no formation of the canon in the sense that
a general council took up the question. The number of books
in the New Testament simply grew. When anyone had the
question as to the sacred character of a book to decide, he was
very likely to ask whether it was from an apostle or not. We
sec that Tertullian, like others before him, succeeds in agreeing

294 THE CANON

to Mark and Luke by the connection of the one with Peter and
of the other with Paul. And this same Tertullian, much as
he likes Hebrews, lets it stand aside because its author, whom
he may well have rightly thought to be Barnabas, was not a
Twelve-Apostle and not Paul the special apostle. Many another
reason came into play at one time and at another, in one place
and the other. A book favoured Gnosticism, therefore it
certainly was not sacred. A book used an apocryphal book,
therefore it could not be received. There was no general rule
that everywhere held good.

At the present time, with our clearer view of ancient history,
it is necessary to make a distinction between the contents and
meaning of three terms : truth, inspiration, canon. Many
Christians have nailed themselves to the word canon, and to
the thought that in some mysterious way during the early second
century the Spirit of God gathered precisely our New Testament,
from Matthew to Revelation, into one single volume, — a large
roll that would have made, — and that since that time the whole
Christian Church has held fast to just this book. We have seen
that this notion has not the least basis in history, that the facts
were of a totally different character. Such persons are not a
little inclined, if one calls attention to the state of the case,
to fall back upon the thought of inspiration. Their theory is
that God caused these words to be written, and that by a positive
necessity of the course of events He then took care that they
should be gathered together into the one collection. This
theory is as a theory beautiful, and it has been a comfort to
many a Christian. But it fails to agree with what really took
place. We see by turning back the pages of the years that
God simply did not, in the way supposed, have the books
collected. We say : Man proposes, God disposes. We might
here say : Man imagines, God did. I believe that God watched
over every step in the paths of the early Christians, but He had
no thought of this theory of inspiration and of canon. If any-
one be then inclined to say that this puts an end to all faith
in the Scriptures, he may reassure himself with the reflection
that when God makes nuts, the point is not the shell of the nut,
but the kernel. If God sends the truth to men, the thing that
He cares for, the thing that His Spirit watches over, is the truth.
He saw to it that the early Christians, through all the

THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA 295

vicissitudes of their earthly fortunes and in spite of all their
own human weakness and fallibility, got the truth and passed
the truth along to us. The great thing for us is, not to become
excited about diverging views as to a canon and canonicity, but
to take the truth and live in the truth, and live the truth and
impart it in its purity to others.

296

297

THE TEXT

OF

THE NEW TESTAMENT

298

299

THE TEXT.

i.

PAPYRUS.

As a general rule the mass of people take things as they are.
They are also likely to think, or at least to go upon the sup-
position, that things always have been as they now are. They
can buy a New Testament, a nicely bound one, for a mere trifle.
It rarely occurs to them that six centuries ago that would not
have been possible. Perhaps there are men who would be sur-
prised to learn that Paul and even Peter and John and James
did not each carry a little New Testament in his girdle. Yet it
is not strange that the knowledge of just what Christians in the
early ages were and did and had, should not be the common
property of the unlearned. Externals are not the main thing.

Let us go back to the first century, to the days of Jesus.
The only time that we hear of Jesus writing is in the story about
the woman taken in adultery. He wrote upon the ground, as if
He did not know that the scribes and Pharisees were near Him
and were talking. He looked up and spoke to them, and again
He wrote upon the ground. Perhaps He only drew circles and
made figures of various forms with His fingers in the sand. It
has been thought that He may have written the sins of the
accusers. But we do not know. If Jesus ever wrote anything,
He may have written as the Arabs write to-day, simply holding a
piece of paper in His left hand and writing as we do with the
right hand. However that may be, Jesus did not write the New
Testament. So far as we know, He did not write a word of it.

It is not only not impossible, but it is even quite likely that
various people had written down some things that are in our
Gospels before the authors of these Gospels began their work. We

300 THE TEXT

do not need to deal with them. We have enough to do with the
books of the New Testament. It is possible that some of Paul's
letters were the first documents that were written that we now
have in our New Testament. Here we must observe how
strangely history repeats itself in varying forms. The older men
of to-day grew up at a time at which most men wrote for them-
selves what they wished to entrust to paper. To-day, however,
everyone is eager to have a stenographer with a writing machine,
or to tell his thoughts to a grammophone and hand that over to
his type-writing clerk. At Paul's day, much as is the case to-day
in the East and in the South, even men who could write were in
the habit of having scribes to do the drudgery of writing for them.
If a man were not rich, he might have a young friend or a pupil
who was ready to wield the pen for him. It comports less with
the dignity of age in the East to write. The old man strokes his
beard and dictates his words to the scribe. That is what Paul
did, although I do not know whether or not he had the beard
which Christian art gives him. He had a good reason for using
another's hand, for his eyes were weak. The Epistle to the
Galatians was an exception. His delicacy forbade him to dictate
such a scolding letter. That was a matter between him and the
Galatians alone. Let us turn to the Epistle to the Romans.
For our purpose one Epistle is as good as another, and which
one could be better than this chief Epistle ? It was Tertius who
wrote it, if the sixteenth chapter belongs to it. Timothy and
Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater were probably all sitting around
Paul and Tertius at Corinth or at Cenchrea when Tertius wrote
their greetings in 1621, and he added his own before he went on
to name Gaius.

When Paul told Tertius that he wished to write a letter by
Tertius' hand, the first thing that Tertius had to do was to get
pens and ink and paper. He may well have had ink at hand,
possibly hanging in his girdle, a bottle of ink made from oak-galls.
If he could find them, he certainly prepared three or four pens so
as not to keep Paul waiting while he mended pens. Of course,
these were not steel pens. The metal pens in ancient times
were probably chiefly intended to make a fine show on a rich
man's table. For actual work a reed pen was used. A scholar
once wrote that the bad writing in a certain New Testament
manuscript was probably due to its having been written with a

PAPYRUS 301

reed pen instead of with a stylus. But you cannot write with
ink with a stylus, and our most exquisite manuscripts were
written with reed pens ; and some people draw daintily to-day
with reed pens. Tertius will therefore have cut half a dozen
reed pens and laid them at his side ready for use.

The paper that he got was what was called papyrus, which is
only the word paper in another shape. The reeds for the pens
came from the marshes or river or sea edges, and the paper
came from the marshes and rivers too. Papyrus is a plant that
one can often find in well appointed parks. In the parks it is
four or five feet high. If I am not mistaken I saw it fifteen feet
high at the Arethusa spring at Syracuse. It has a three-cornered
stem which is of pith, with vertical cell-pipes, and the sides are
covered by a thin green skin. There are no joints. At the top
is a large inverted tassel of grass-like hair like the crest for a
helmet. The great place for papyrus in ancient times was Egypt,
although European rivers, for example, the Anapo near Syracuse,
also produced it. The pith stem was cut crosswise into lengths
of fifteen or twenty centimetres according to wish, and then cut
lengthwise into thin flat strips like tape. These tape-like strips
were laid vertically to the edge of the table side by side till there
were enough for a leaf of the desired size. Then other strips
were laid across them, that is to say, horizontally, or running with
the edge of the table. Between the two layers was a thin glue
or paste. These leaves were pressed, so that the strips should
all stick flat together, and left to dry. The drying is easy in
Egypt. Things dry almost before they have come to perceive
that they are wet. The dried leaves were a trifle rough. For
the thread-like walls of those longitudinal cells often rose above
the surface. For nice paper the surface was then smoothed off,
it may be with pumice-stone or with an ink-fish's bone, or it
was hammered. It was a very good surface to write upon, not
unlike birch bark, which many readers will know from the
Adirondacs or Maine or Canada.

It has sometimes been supposed that all papyrus leaves,
that is, all leaves of paper made from papyrus, were of the
same size. That was not the case. A scholar explained that
Second John and Third John were just that long, because no
more would go upon the papyrus leaf on which they were
written. That theory neglected the size of the writing. I

302 THE TEXT

write on a half foolscap page, 21 x 16.3 centimetres 1200 or
even 1700 or 1800 words, whereas people who write larger put
fewer words on such a page, perhaps 200 or 300. But that
theory also failed to observe that the papyrus lengths could be
cut at will ; and as for that, as we shall see in a moment, if a man
had wished for a papyrus leaf six metres each way it would have
been easy to paste the leaves together and reach those dimensions.
Let us go back to Tertius. Paul will have told him that he
intended to write a long letter, and Tertius will have bought a
number of good-sized leaves, not ladies' note-paper, but a business
quarto probably. It is even possible that he bought at once a
roll that was about as large as he thought would be necessary.
If so, that roll was made, as he could have made it himself, by
pasting the single leaves together. If the roll proved too long he
could cut the rest of it off. If it were too short, he could paste
as many more leaves on to it as he liked. Tertius began to write
at the left end of the roll, if he bought the leaves ready pasted
together. That is to say, when he began to write he turned the
roll so that the part to be unrolled was at his right hand. If
Paul had wished him to write Hebrew, — Paul could have
written Hebrew, I question whether Tertius could have, — he
would have turned the roll upside down and begun to write with
the part to be unrolled at his left hand. He probably wrote in
columns that were about as broad as a finger is long. That is an
uncertain measure. So is the breadth of the columns. But
when the roll was already made up and had its curves set it was
not so easy to write a broad column. And, besides, the narrow
columns were easier to read.

So Tertius began : " Paul a servant of Jesus Christ, called
to be an apostle." That Epistle was not written at one sitting.
It is much more likely to have been written at twenty or thirty
sittings. In the East there is less hurry than in the West.
And Paul had to weave his tent-cloth. But at last the end
came: "To whom be glory unto the ages of the ages. Amen."
One would like to know whether Tertius appreciated that
Epistle. Doubtless he did, as well as one could then. But
he could not value it as we do after these centuries, during
which it has instructed and warned and chided and comforted
hundreds of thousands of Christians. And after it was done
Phcebe carried it to Rome, always supposing that the sixteenth

PAPYRUS 303

chapter was written at the same time with the first fourteen, a
question which does not now concern us. It is not hard to
look in upon the Christians at Rome when the Epistle reaches
that city. Phcebe gives it to one of the chief men among
the Christians. At the first possible moment, probably on a
Lord's Day — for they would not think of calling that day by
the Jewish name of Sabbath, as some English-speaking people
do ; Sabbath is the name of Saturday — on the Lord's Day,
because on that day everybody, or at least many of the Christians,
could take the time for a long meeting, they read the Epistle
before the assembled Church. Did they read it all through at
one meeting ? It seems to me likely that they did. They will
have wished to know all that Paul had to say.

The next question that arises for us is not, whether the
Roman Christians then proceeded to take to heart all the good
advice that Paul gave them. That belongs to another depart-
ment of theology. What we wish to know is, what they did with
the Epistle, with this long letter, after they had read it that
first time. One thing is clear. They did not then tear it up
and throw it away because, as people to-day so often say of
letters just received and at once destroyed, they knew all that
was in it. It is actually possible to read in scientific books that
doubtless the early Christian Churches read the letters sent
to them by the apostles once or twice and then put them
away. The impression given is, that they then perhaps for
months and years did not read them again. To my mind it
is not easy to find anything more unreasonable and improbable
than that.

The early Christians were largely poor people, many of them
not well educated, many of them certainly with no more
education than the school of hard living and hard work had
bestowed upon them. There were then no newspapers. What
men knew of the events of the day had to be gained almost
altogether from hearsay. There were also, and particularly for
poor people, even if they knew how to *--ead, but few books to
be had. And there were still fewer Christian books. Christians
who could write books were still few. The Christians had as
yet no great motive for writing books. One thing filled their
thoughts : It will soon be Heaven. They did not think that
this earth had still a long lease to run. If we could imagine

J04 THE TEXT

that one of them had said : I am going to write a big book,
we should at once also imagine that his brother said : What is
the use? The trumpet will sound before you are half done.
And, further, there were not many preachers. It is true that
Paul's advice to the Corinthians seems to imply an extremely
eager participation of anybody and everybody in the church
services. Yet churches are different in such respects. Every
city had not such enterprising rhetorical and prophetical and
ecstatic members as Corinth had. And times differ. Corinth
may well afterwards have had its periods of greater quiet on the
part of the single Christians in the church gatherings. Summing
it all up, the early Christian churches will certainly have
welcomed new reading matter, new writings that they could
read in church. That does not imply that they looked upon
this letter and such letters as equivalent to the Old Testament.
Not in the least. This letter was a message to them all from
a well-known preacher, and therefore it could be read in church.
A part of this letter would have been, will have been, for them
like a sermon from Paul.

It is not to be supposed that they will every Sunday from
that first Sunday onwards have read the whole Epistle through.
Nor can we be sure that on every single Sunday they read
some parts of it. But it seems to me that we may set down
two things as quite certain under such circumstances. One is,
that at the first, as a necessary following up of the first reading,
the church at Rome will have soon and repeatedly read
and discussed given parts of the Epistle. The other is, that
even after time had passed, especially after Paul had been
there twice and had died as a martyr, a year, two years,
ten years later they will at least occasionally have again read
this Epistle, section after section. That thought presents, how-
ever, various further considerations for us touching the text.
We are not now studying directly Church history, but book
history. If you please, it is the book division of Church
history. We are to fix our eyes on that roll of papyrus. It is
a very fair sized roll, for Tertius in writing a letter that was to
be read to the church was not likely to use a diamond size of
handwriting. And, besides, only one side of the roll, the inside,
was written upon. That was what we may call the " right side "
of the papyrus. It was the side on which the strips of papyrus

PAPYRUS 305

ran across the page from side to side, and not up and down the
page from top to bottom.

One of the things to be considered is the fact that in a
large city like Rome, even at that early date, the groups of
Christians will have been somewhat scattered. The Christians
to whom Paul wrote in this Epistle are evidently for the most
part not Jewish Christians but heathen Christians, Christians
who had before that time been heathen. Therefore they will
not have all been living close together in the Jewish quarter of
the city, as might have been the case if they had all been born
Jews. In consequence of this there will have been meetings
of ten or twenty or fifty who lived near each other on the week-
day evenings, on Wednesday and Friday as a rule. Now it is
in every way to be supposed that sometimes Paul's letter was
carried to one and another of these little meetings, so that it
could be read, that some passage from it could be read and
discussed there. We can hear the man who had the roll saying
to the one who carries it away from him to the little meeting :
Take care of it. Do not let it be torn. Be sure to bring it
back in good order. That was very necessary, for papyrus is a
frail stuff.

We pass over a year or two and look at our roll. That
papyrus, as we saw, was made of tape-like strips of vegetable
fibre laid crosswise, at right angles to each other. When it
dried, the fibre was, of course, stiffer than when green. The
members of the church kept the book dry, and the fibres
will have only grown the more stiff and the more set in their
ways, in their curled-up way in the roll. The Epistle had to be
kept dry, for it would have grown mouldy if allowed to be damp,
and the ink would have been spoiled or printed off on the
papyrus against the columns. The roll has been unrolled and
rolled up again. When the reader read the beginning of it and
went on towards the middle he rolled up with his left hand the
part he had read, so as to able to hold it well for the further
reading. When, as must often have happened, the part read
was well on in the roll, there was quite an amount of unrolling
with the right hand and rolling up with the left hand to be done
before the passage was reached. If the roll had been lying still
in the room of a careful scholar, who only unrolled it at rare
intervals and then always with great care, it might have lived
20

306 the text

out these two years without much change. Instead of Jthat it
had been carried to the meetings. It had been often opened
and re-rolled, and certainly often not with the greatest care.
Curious people, even the unlearned who could not read, will in
the small meetings have fingered the roll. There are many
people, even people who can read and write, who do not think
they have seen a thing until they have put their fingers on it,
as if they were blind ; in this way our roll has been felt and
pinched by many hands.

Here and there one of the stiff fibres, you might call it
a tiny stick, has broken when it was rolled up, like a piece
of wood broken across your knee. Another fibre has broken
at the edge when somebody pinched it, or perhaps when
the reader grasped it too firmly while busy rendering the im-
passioned sentences of Paul. No wonder that the reader forgot
the papyrus while reading, let us say, what we call the eighth
chapter of Romans, for Tertius will not have numbered any
chapters. But it was also no wonder that then those little
papyrus fibre sticks broke. Papyrus breaks rather than tears.
Another fibre breaks alongside of the first one, and after a few
have broken in the direction of the writing, the first thing you
know some of the up and down fibres break and very soon
there is a rough hole like a little square or a parallelogram in
the letter. If that happens in the vacant space between two
columns of writing, it does not do much harm for the moment.
If, however, it happens in the middle of a line, then a part of a
word or even a whole word may be lost, so that the reader will
have to guess at it from the sense of the rest.

In time the leading men of the church see that if they
wish in the years to come to know what the letter contains,
they must copy it off before it falls altogether to pieces. And
there may before this time have been another reason for
copying the Epistle. A Christian from Corinth or Ephesus
or Alexandria may have been at Rome on business and heard
of this letter and heard or read it, and then have wished to
take a copy of it back with him for the church at home.
Thus in one way or the other the letter comes to be copied
off for Rome or for another church. The Epistle is written
again. This time Paul is not dictating, but the man writing
has a roll before his eyes. And this man writing is not Tertius,

PAPYRUS 307

but some one in the church at Rome. He will doubtless
make some mistakes in copying, but we shall not trouble about
them at this moment. We wish to know what becomes of
the original letter. From the point of view of an antiquarian
or of a relic hunter of to-day, one would say that the papyrus
roll which Paul had sent to Rome would have been treasured
most carefully by the church. As a matter of fact, nothing
of that kind is likely to have happened.

Let us put the matter down as precisely as possible, remember
ing all the while that we have no exact knowledge of the details,
and that the years may be quite different. Paul probably dictated
Romans to Tertius at Corinth in the year 53 or 54. He was
probably for the first time a prisoner at Rome about 57 to 59.
Whether carried a second time as a prisoner to Rome from the
West or from the East, or whether he was arrested while visiting
that city, he appears to have died there as a martyr in the year
64. Considering the frailty of papyrus, it is in every way likely
that the Epistle was copied off long before the death of Paul.
Let us, however, give it, the original, a long life, and say that it
was copied off for the Romans again shortly after Paul's death.
We heighten thereby the value of that original. Yet we must
again say, that the original was probably totally neglected so
soon as the new copy was done. Paul was one of the greatest
men, was the greatest man, among the Christians in those years.
But he did not stand in the position that he now does. Further,
however, so far as we can see, the reverence for relics had not
yet begun among the Christians. There was enthusiasm and
zeal, yet they were directed more to the future than to the past.
The Christian was then bent on doing or on hoping, not upon
looking back to worthies of the past. We might almost say that
the gaze of the Church was fixed less upon Jesus of Nazareth
and more upon Jesus the Prince that was soon to return. The
original letter written by the hand of Tertius to the Romans was
probably laid in a corner and soon entirely forgotten. It was
old and time-worn. Papyrus, if much used, is soon time-worn.

We have spoken of a letter of Paul's. Of course, the case
would have been much the same with a letter of James' or
Peter's or John's or Jude's. It will be clear that in Rome,
during the time to which we have referred, there may have
been copies received of one or more of the letters that Paul

308 THE TEXT

wrote to churches farther east, just as we supposed that copies
of Romans might have been made for churches in the East.
If such letters reached Rome, the leaders of the church will
probably have kept the various rolls in some one place. Some
one man is likely to have been charged with the care of them,
though it would be conceivable that separate persons kept
separate rolls. It is in no way to be supposed that anyone
in Rome will have thought of changing any words or cutting
any out or putting any in, in the original of Paul's letter. So
long as the original existed and was legible, the church had
in its hands precisely the words that Paul had dictated to
Tertius.

There are, however, in the New Testament, books that are
not letters. There is, for example, the Revelation, to which
I am still inclined to attribute an early date. It is a question
whether or not we should here think of dictation. Were the
book issued by John in the nineties of the first century, should
that some day be proved, then we should at once say that
the old man had dictated it. But if it was written before the
year seventy, there is more possibility that it should have been
written directly by the author. Yet that does not matter.

Whether dictated or whether written by its author, this book
of Revelation does not seem to have been a book written
from beginning to end fresh from the brain of the man who
thought it all out, who imagined the scenes depicted in it.
It is apparently made upon the basis of a Jewish book. The
author of the Christian book found that the dreams of the
Jewish book were good, and he made a Christian introduction,
an acceptable beginning for the book, and a like ending, and
he added or took away or rearranged and modified the Jewish
accounts to suit Christian needs. The Jewish Christians at
Jerusalem before the year 70 doubtless fulfilled, like James
and Paul, their religious duty as Jews. They were still good
Jews although they were Christians. They still looked upon
Christianity as the normal continuation of Judaism. For them
Judaism was Christianity. The Jews who were not Christians
simply failed properly to understand what Judaism was and
should be. Thus, then, the Christian who published this book
seems merely to have made an enlarged and corrected and
re-wrought edition of an existing Jewish book. The book is

PAPYRUS 309

not a whit the worse for that. The figures and scenes are as
vivid and the descriptions are as telling whether first conceived
by a Jew who was still only an old-fashioned Jew, or by a
Jew who had become a Christian. So or so this book of visions
and dreams is written upon a roll of papyrus.

Tertius wrote Romans for Paul for the Christians at Rome.
This book of Revelation was written by some one named John
for seven churches in Asia Minor : Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon,
Thyatira, Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. It would, of
course have been possible for John to write but a single copy
and to send it around to the seven churches like a book
from a circulating library, leaving it, let us say, four weeks in
each church, so that in twenty-eight weeks, a little more
than half a year, all would have had it. The churches are
not so very far apart. I went with the train from Smyrna to
Ephesus in 2 J hours and returned in the afternoon. A slow
little steamer carried me from Smyrna in a few hours to
Dikeli, from which place I walked during the evening, and,
after a night on the sand, by seven o'clock the next morning
to Pergamon. From Pergamon a half a day's walk took me
to Soma, where a train passing through Thyatira returned
me to Smyrna in a little more than half a day. The other three
cities lie only a little to the east of these four. John could
easily have sent the letter around in a single copy. We might
think that that was meant by the words in Rev. i11 "Write
what you see into a book, and send it to the seven churches."
And the fact that the letters to the seven churches all follow,
Rev. 21 to 322, might point to the same thing.

It would be possible to suppose that if a copy were written for
each church, if seven copies were written, each copy would have
had but one letter in it, the copy for Ephesus only the letter
to Ephesus, and so for the other churches. If, however, we
reflect upon the fact that these letters are not merely letters
for seven churches, but that they also under the guise of
the seven churches are directed towards the needs of Christians
in general and the needs of individual Christians in every
church, it will, I think, at once appear that it would not occur
to John to send the book with but a single letter to each church.
The seven letters are a mosaic pattern of Christian life
and belong together. No one will imagine, further, that only

3lO THE TEXT

those letters and not the book of Revelation were to be sent
to the churches, for that verse says that John is to write in
the book what he sees, that is to say, the visions which follow,
and send it to the churches. The short letters are not visions,
but messages. And, besides, word would have passed quickly
from the first church that received the roll, had there been
but a single one, and the other six churches would not have
wished to wait for weeks and months to know what was
addressed to them as well as to that first church. We must
therefore suppose that John prepared at once seven copies
of the Revelation and sent one to each church. Should any
one insist upon it that John as the author merely wrote one
copy and then left the book to its fate, no one would conceive
it possible that the seven churches did not have copies made
at once.

We therefore are now after this long discussion in a
different position from that which we held in the case of
Romans. There we saw at the first and for a while but ■ one
letter, one book, in the hands of one church. Here we have
a book in seven copies addressed to seven churches of varying
moods and characters. The situation is slightly different from
the point of view of the criticism of the text. For Romans
there was, so far as we know, for a time but one authentic
copy which made its definite impression of words and phrases
and paragraphs upon the minds of the Christians in a large
city. Many of the Romans will have known very exactly just
what the Epistle said touching one point and another. Here
there are seven authentic copies, if John himself sent out the
seven. And if the churches had the copies made, there are
almost at once seven copies of the book. That will of itself
have had perhaps an effect upon the exactness of the text.
Copying a book looks easy, just as translation seems easy to
people who know nothing about it. It is difficult to copy a
common letter of four pages straightway and quickly without
making a mistake. After one has discovered how easy it is
to make mistakes in copying, he will be ready to believe that
it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the text even in
these first seven copies showed trifling differences. We leave the
book of Revelation for the moment and turn to other books.

There remain the four Gospels and the book of Acts.

PAPYRUS 311

Matthew, Mark, and Luke with Acts all show in one way a
certain resemblance in their origin to the book of Revelation.
Every one of them was written upon the basis of an earlier
book, or of two or three earlier books. But they all used the
earlier matter in, it appears, a much more independent way
than Revelation used its basis. They gave more of their
own and impressed their personality upon the books more
decidedly. Mark was doubtless written first. It is the smallest
of the four books. It may very well have been written at Rome,
and may also, as ever busy tradition relates, have had some
connection with recollections of Peter's which he related to
Mark. Yet if it had such a connection we are nevertheless
not able to lay our pointer upon the words that depend upon
Peter's memory. Paul's Epistles were sent to the churches
here and there, the Revelation was given to the seven churches.
It would be very interesting to know to whom Mark gave his
Gospel. Perhaps to the church at Rome.

But to whomsoever he gave it, it probably met almost at
once with an accident, a bad accident. I think it most likely
that in the very first copy of it, which was probably on papyrus,
the last two or three columns were broken off or torn off or
cut off and lost. We shall come back to that at another
place (see pp. 51 1-5 13).

Matthew's Gospel, or better, the Gospel according to Matthew,
was written in its current form by someone who had Mark's Gospel
and perhaps a book by Matthew, and it may be still some other
book in his hands. He was, this author was, himself by origin an
ardent Jew, and kept referring to the Old Testament. But that
does not suffice to tell us where he wrote or to whom he gave his
Gospel. Perhaps he wrote somewhere in Asia Minor. Asia
Minor, that Paul had so vigorously missionised, was a stronghold
of Christianity. Both Mark and Matthew are likely to have
been at once copied in order to be carried to other churches
besides the one that first received each. There was nothing
in either work to limit its address or its use to a single
community.

In the case of Luke we find a pleasing personal turn. We
might say that the author was too modest to offer his work
to a church or to the Church in general, but ventured to
send it to his friend Theophilus, always supposing that this friend

312 THE TEXT

the God-Lover or the one Loved-of-God was not a roundabout
address to any and every good Christian. Luke is so evidently
a skilled writer, that we must suppose him to have caused his
book to be copied a number of times in spite of the address
to a private person. Where he first issued it we do not know.
The former suggestion of Asia Minor for Matthew might very
well also be made for Luke. The book of Acts Luke wrote
doubtless a few years later. Now the three former -books were
crystallisations of the gospel that was preached. They are
connected with each other through their basis, through the
writings used in their composition, so that they in general place
before our eyes the same phase of and largely the same incidents
in the life of Jesus and the same words of Jesus, and they
therefore support each other. The churches of the latter
part of the first century that learned of the existence of these
Gospels will have desired to have them, so far as their means
permitted them to buy the rolls. We are forced to suppose
that they were often copied and were sent hither and thither
among the churches, and in particular to the churches near
the place at which they first appeared, and to the churches in
the chief cities. These larger churches both heard more quickly
by means of the frequent travellers of the issue of new books,
and were more capable of paying for good copies of them.

It seems to me not to be reasonable to suppose that these books
lived a retired, violet like existence, remaining long unknown
to the mass of the churches. It does not seem to me to agree
with the first principles of scientific hypothesis to imagine that
these Gospels did not exist in towns from which we have received
no treatise quoting them. We cannot look for inscriptions for
every town in which Christians had Christian books, giving
every ten years from 70 to 200 the catalogue of those at
command. That means for textual criticism that we must
assume before the end of the first century the widespread
existence of a number of copies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
The interest in the book of Acts will have been by no means
so great as the interest in the Gospels, and it will not have
been copied anything like so often.

The Gospel of John stands by itself. The question as to
its author cannot here be treated at length. I am of the opinion
either that John the Twelve-Apostle dictated it to a disciple

PAPYRUS 3 I 3

shortly before his death, or that some such disciple who had
been most intimately allied to John wrote the Gospel soon after
the death of the apostle. Now it is interesting to observe that
in this case we have a tradition that upon the face of it does
not look improbable. Tradition says that John dictated the
Gospel to a disciple of his named Prochorus. We see this
tradition given pictorially in a clear way in many a manuscript
containing this Gospel. In one of the upper corners, usually
in the one at the right hand of the picture, either a hand or rays
come forth from a cloud to indicate the presence and activity
of the Divine Spirit. John stands before us raising his left hand
towards that divine manifestation in order to receive the heavenly
inspiration, and stretching his right hand down toward Prochorus,
who is seated at the left hand and writing the Gospel : " In the
beginning was the Word." There is nothing like this that often
occurs in the manuscripts for the other evangelists. I know
of nothing thus far that should make it more impossible for
Prochorus to have written the Fourth Gospel at John's dictation
than for Tertius to have written Romans at Paul's dictation.
But we have no positive knowledge of the fact.

This Gospel has, further, another peculiarity in reference to its
authorship, for it contains at the close one (or two) verses evidently
added by another hand. John 21'24 (and 25) look as if they had
been added by the chief men in the church which first received
this Gospel. In modern phrase, these would be the elders or
the clergy of the church in which John worshipped. In the
verses before these the Twelve-Apostle John has been mentioned
as the disciple whom Jesus loved, about whom Peter asked.
Thereupon the twenty-fourth verse adds : " This is the disciple
who testifies touching these things, and who wrote these things :
and we know that his testimony is true." The twenty-fifth verse
says : " And there are many other things which Jesus did, which,
if they were written one by one, I do not think that the world
itself would hold the books written." Now this verse might
be from John. That twenty-fourth verse might have been
originally added by the elders at the side of the column near
v.23 and then have been put into the column itself before
v.25 by a later scribe. Those words are almost like a receipt
for the Gospel on the part of the community. For textual
criticism this declaration gives in a way a surety for careful

314 THE TEXT

attention to the words of the Gospel in that first church. We
shall find that the text of this Gospel is in some ways in better
condition than that of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, because it
stood alone, and because it was not so much dependent upon
written sources.

Ancient Handwriting.

It is not uninteresting to ask what kind of writing was probably
used in the first copies of those New Testament books. At
that time the main kinds of handwriting were two : uncial
writing and cursive writing. We could call them capitals and a
running hand. The capitals were used for books that were well
gotten up, for fine editions. In such books the words were all
written in capital letters, word joined on to word without break,
much as if we were to WRITEINENGLISHTHUS. It was
then easy enough to tell what the letters were, but it required a
quick eye and a good head to tell quickly at some places just
how the words were to be divided off, what belonged together
and what was to be separated. At the first moment a Christian,
thinking of the pretty editions of the Bible that we have, would
say that Tertius when he wrote Paul's letter to the Romans must
surely have used these large and fine letters. But those who know
what people at that day were likely to write would say no. That
was a letter that Tertius was writing, even if it was a very large
letter. It was an essay, a treatise, an article ; but it was the
habit then, as it often has been since, upon occasion to write
such an essay in the form of a letter. And such a letter would
not be written in the formal stiff capitals, but in the running hand.
A running hand was just what the name says, handwriting written
at a run, written in a hurry, as so many people write to-day. The
letters were at first, we might say, just like those capital letters.
But the swiftness of the strokes had impaired the form of the
letters. If we look at many a handwriting that we see to-day and
ask how much a d or an m or a u looks like the printed form of
those letters or like the forms given in copy-books, we may
understand that in the same way the writing that Tertius wrote
in all probability contained many strange looking letters. The
letters will often have been written close together, and all joined
together without respect to the division between words. We

PAPYRUS 315

cannot at all tell how well Tertius was able to write. We do not
know whether he wrote a clear hand or whether he wrote a bad
hand. The chances are that he wrote well. That is, it may be,
the reason why he, and not Timothy or Lucius or Jason or
Sosipater, who were all there at the time, was asked to do the
writing.

From what we have already seen, it is clear that we cannot
look for the originals of the books of the New Testament among
the books of our libraries. One could dream of possibilities.
We might fancy that one of the little letters of John had been
slipped into some box or laid away in a diptych, a little double
wax tablet like two slates hinged together, and that the box or
the diptych was to be discovered to-morrow by the Austrian
scholar who is unearthing Ephesus. But there is not the least
likelihood of anything of that kind. The probability is that every
vestige of the original writings had vanished long before the time
of Eusebius, the most of the writings before the year 200, and
many of them before the year 100. A knavish fellow brought
some leaves of papyrus to England more than forty years ago
and sold them to an English merchant who trusted his word for
it that they were out of the original Matthew and the original
James and the original Jude. The material really was papyrus.
There was upon the leaves a real writing of a late century that
had nothing to do with the times of the New Testament. And
then there were some big but rather dim letters upon the papyrus
containing passages from Matthew and James and Jude, and
the rascal who sold them declared that these passages were a
previous writing on the papyrus, and had been written in the first
century of our era by those three authors. It was not strange
that the rich man who believed this paid a large sum to gain
possession of such wonderful treasures. When, however, the
experts came to examine the leaves they saw at once that the
pretended old writing was a mere piece of cheating. They could
clearly see that this writing, which was alleged to be of the first
century, had not at all been written at first upon the papyrus,
before that very much younger writing, but that it was on top of
the writing centuries younger. That man had written it there
himself to make money He was really a very learned man, and
it was a great pity that he in this as in some other cases proved
untrustworthy. We cannot expect to find remains of the original

316 THE TEXT

copies of the books of the New Testament. God did not hand
these books down from heaven. He caused men to write them.
And when each book had lived its day He allowed it to vanish
away like other frail human fabrics. He did not have regard to
the letter but to the spirit, not to the outside of the book or the
roll but to the inside of it in the inward sense, not to something
perishable but to something eternal.

Zl7

II.

PARCHMENT.

We saw that at Rome the time had come at which the leaders of
the Christians there were persuaded that if they did not wish to
lose the letter of Paul to them they must have it copied. The
question that now arises refers to the way in which it was copied.
If the church had been a poor little group of men who could only
with great difficulty scrape together a small amount of money, the
new letter would have been to all intents and purposes the
counterpart of the old letter. It would have been written on
papyrus again and in a running hand. It would have been written
upon papyrus because that was the common writing material, the
paper, of that day, whether at Alexandria or at Antioch or at
Rome. If a man put a handbill up at Rome, he wrote it on a
big piece of coarse papyrus. If he wrote a delicate note to his
wife or his mother, he wrote it on a little piece of fine papyrus.
Papyrus was their paper.

But I do not think it is probable that the Romans caused
this Epistle to be copied on papyrus. The church at Rome
had then many members. It was perhaps the largest and most
wealthy Christian community in existence. If any church could
afford to have a nice book written, it was the church at Rome.
It was not a mere matter of pride or luxury, however, and not
merely the desire, the very proper desire, to do honour to a
letter of the Apostle Paul, that was calculated to lead them
not to use papyrus. The papyrus was not very durable : we have
seen why it was not. As time went on the Christians must
have felt that they could depend less upon the immediate return
of Jesus, that they must arrange the Church and its belongings
for a longer stay in this wicked world. They still wrote as we
saw above in the letter of Clement : " The church living in this
foreign world at Rome," and they still looked to heaven as their
real home. Yet they began to treat themselves more calmly, to
make themselves more "at home" here. That meant for the

318 THE TEXT

books of the New Testament that they must put them upon the
most durable book-material that they could find.

Now they might have had them written on leather. The Jews
in ancient times often had their sacred books on leather. Leather
is, however, not very nice for books. It is too thick and too
heavy and too dark-coloured. The written words are soon not
much blacker than the leather itself. There is something better
than leather, and that is parchment. Parchment is called in Greek
" pergamini " after the city Pergamus where it is said to have been
invented. I suppose it was merely very well made there, so that
the name of the city was given to the best kind. To make
parchment, usually sheepskins or goatskins or calfskins are used.
The skin is stretched out tight and dried, and then scraped off on
both sides and then rubbed with chalk. In the East I am in-
clined to think that goatskins are most frequently used, when
they can be had. They are better than sheepskins, because there
is not so much oily matter in them. We shall return to parch-
ment again and tell more about it.

Probably the Romans had Paul's letter copied off on to a
parchment roll. Now they knew how long it was, and they
could tell how long the roll must be. The textual critic must
know all about book-making, not for races but for literature. We
are at Rome. In this great city there were plenty of well-
trained scribes. It is quite likely that some scribes had already
become Christians. If not, there would be Christians who
knew scribes upon whom they could rely, who would treat the
Christian books carefully. The scribes were paid according to
the amount of writing of course, and they often gave the measure
of a book at the end of it. Then the man who had ordered
the book would know how much he had to pay. And if any-
one wished for a new copy he could at once tell the scribe how
long it was, and learn the price. In England and America a
printer who sets up a book is paid by the number of ms, which
are called ems, because m is square and therefore makes a good
measure. The Greek scribes were paid by the " line," called a
stichos. It would never have done to leave the measuring " line "
to vary according to the book. Therefore once for all, for all
kinds of books, whether sacred or profane, whether prose or
poetry, a line that was about as long as a line or verse of Homer,
a hexameter line, was used. Such a line contains about thirty-six

PARCHMENT 319

letters on an average. If a trained scribe were summoned to
write Romans off, he would count the number of lines and then
write them down at the end of the Epistle. If the Epistle has
remained just as he had it before him, he must have written " nine
hundred and twenty or fifty lines" or thereabouts. And this
trained scribe will now probably not have used the running hand
for his work. The Epistle was no longer a letter that someone
wrote here and sent thither. It was a little book that these
Christians wished to keep and read. The scribe wrote it doubt-
less in pretty capital letters, in comparatively narrow columns.
That would be much clearer and easier to read, whether in
private or in the meetings in church. The scribe we shall
assume wrote the Epistle anew. If some simple Christian who
could only write the running hand really wrote it off the first time,
then the trained scribe came later. He came. He could not
but come, so soon as the church wished for a pretty copy.

We must here mention another matter in passing, something
also connected with book-making. There is one of the most
interesting problems in the realm of New Testament research
that attaches to the last two chapters of the Epistle to the Romans.
The problem itself belongs rather to the criticism of the books
than to the criticism of the text. But one or two of the solutions
of the problem rest upon a possibility in textual criticism, upon a
possibility in the copying off of books. For my own part I am
inclined to accept in the case of these two chapters, and I may
say especially in the case of the last, the sixteenth chapter, a
solution which belongs precisely at this point, at which we are
leaving the original letter as Tertius wrote it and passing on to a
new copy written by an unknown scribe. Here we must be short.
It is not impossible that Romans at first closed with chapter
fourteen. If that was the case, then these two other chapters
were probably written separately by Paul, and at Rome placed for
good keeping in the roll of Romans. It must not be forgotten
that, among the accidents which occasionally happened to papyrus
rolls, the tearing across the whole roll sometimes took place.
This circumstance would make it easy for a scribe to suppose on
finding a couple of loose pieces that they were a part of the
Epistle. He may even have thought that the original author of
the Epistle had written, or dictated, them and laid them in the
roll without taking the trouble or having the paste to stick them

320 THE TEXT

on to the end of the roll. It is, however, not even positively
necessary to imagine a misunderstanding of that kind. It could
have been done in all honesty and of set purpose.

Let us go back to Rome. The leader of the church who
handed the roll to the scribe may have known very well that
the pieces of papyrus, on which what we call the fifteenth
and sixteenth chapters were written, had been received by
the church apart from Romans. But he may have said : " Here
are these two short communications from Paul. If I leave them
lying around they will soon be lost. The best thing will be
to write them into the new roll at the end of Romans. Here,
scribe, copy these at the end of the roll. They are from Paul
too." A Christian could then very well have spoken and acted
thus. That would have been for him a thoroughly practical
and perfectly proper way of disposing of such small letters. It
was no forgery. Paul had written it all. And this Christian
did not for a moment think of the critics in coming centuries
who would rack their brains to discover what was the matter
with these chapters. And even from the advanced standpoint of
to-day we must confess that if this really be the state of affairs
it does* not do the least harm. No one's salvation, and I think
no one's peace of mind, depends upon our knowing just how
these chapters came to stand where they do (see pp. 521-526).

We have now reached the point at which Romans has been
copied off in a literary hand on parchment. We pass over a
few years. It is not easy to say just how many. The church
at Rome has one by one at last come into possession of a number
of the Epistles of Paul. Many or all of them may have reached
Rome on the cheaper paper, papyrus, and written in the common
running hand. It is not impossible that the church caused
them some day to be copied together into one large roll. In
like manner the four Gospels were at first on separate rolls and
may later have been put into one roll.

We have fastened our gaze on Rome. There we have the
most favourable conditions possible for the careful preservation
of the books and for their re-copying whenever it may be
desirable. At Corinth, at Smyrna, at Antioch, at Alexandria
the general conditions for Christian books are not so very
different from those found in Rome. Every one of these cities
had a prosperous church, and that church was, like the one at

PARCHMENT 32 1

Rome, Greek, and used the New Testament in its original
language. Such large churches were, we may be sure, the first
to gather the books together. In smaller towns and in the
villages, so far as Christianity had reached them, the circum-
stances were in many varying degrees different from those in the
cities named. The cities that any of the Twelve-Apostles or that
Paul had visited were in name and certainly to a large extent in
fact ahead of the others, particularly those to which the apostles
had written Epistles. They prided themselves on their distinction,
and the other towns looked up to them with feelings akin to
envy. In the villages the number of New Testament books at
command must long have remained minimal. Often the copy of
an Epistle or of a Gospel that a preacher brought with him from
a neighbouring town, in order to read from it during the Sunday
service, may have been the only such book that the Christians
there saw from one week to another. In some cases we may
hold it likely that the village churches received old and damaged
rolls which the city churches had cast aside on securing new and
better copies, precisely as it sometimes to-day happens that
city churches send old Bibles or hymn-books or prayer-books
to churches on the frontiers of civilisation. In other cases it is
sure to have come to pass that Christians who could write but
a very poor script succeeded in borrowing a roll and in copying
a book for their town or village.

There was no standstill in all this. Everything was moving •
on. The mind's eye might have seen the books gradually
going out and gradually multiplying from place to place like
the leaven going through the lump, like a lichen spreading over
a rock, like an ivy covering a wall. To this slight sketch of
the growth in the number of the manuscripts of the books
of the New Testament nothing need be added until the fourth
century. There came now and then indeed, sad to say, times
of reverse. A governor of a province or the ruler of a city
occasionally took it into his head to check the progress of
Christian effort by forcing the Christians under him to give up
to him the writings which they so much cherished. The various
cases differed much from each other. Sometimes they were told
to bring their books, and the officials did not scrutinise the
number or the character of the books handed over. In other
places the officials rudely demanded all books, and searched
21

322 THE TEXT

every nook and corner to find them. Yet in spite of such
reverses the word was sowed broadcast. Such times of reverse
served to sieve out the nominal Christians from the real
Christians, the lovers of and the doers of the word from those
who only " heard " it.

Leaf-Books.

As we approach the fourth century I must describe a theory
of mine. It is a mere theory, a hypothesis, a fancy as to what
may have happened. Should we some day or other come to
know the facts, they will perhaps not agree with the theory at
all. For the moment, however, the facts lie hidden and the
theory may boldly stalk abroad. We have already remarked
that the books in the times of which we have spoken were not
leaf books, not squares or parallelograms an inch or a few inches
thick with a number of leaves to be turned over, but were rolls.
At the close of the fourth century the books appear to have been
almost altogether leaf-books, at least that is my impression. We
do not yet know at what precise moment the change from rolls
to leaf-books was made. It was a great change. How different
a library of rolls would look from a library of leaf-books ! How
much more easy it is to hold, to read, to find anything in a leaf-
book from what it is to hold a roll, to read it, or to find anything
in it ! At present, with all that I have heard and seen, I am
inclined to think that this change was made about the end
of the third or the beginning of the fourth century, or ± 300.
We do not know. That is the best guess I can now make. A
new papyrus may to-morrow show that the change came earlier.

The theory touches the person or persons who made this
change, who invented leaf-books. I am ready to believe that leaf-
books are due to a Christian ; that a Christian was the first one who
felt the need of a change, and who effected the change. The reason
for the theory is this. No one had such need as the Christian
to seek different passages in great numbers in widely separated
places in large books. There were several classes of scholars.
There were heathen classical scholars, who had a comparatively
limited library of Greek and Latin works, among which Plato and
Aristotle were perhaps with Homer the ones represented by the
largest number of rolls. There were Jewish philosophers and

PARCHMENT 325

Jewish rabbis who both dealt with the Old Testament books, the
philosophers also using the writings of the classical world. And
finally appeared our latest generation the Christians, who knew
and used the writings of the classical world, and who were com-
pelled in debate with Jews and with heathen and with Christians
to turn swiftly from Genesis to Revelation, from First John to
Daniel, from Isaiah to Paul. No others needed to turn to so
many books and so quickly. Here is the hold for the theory.
I think this difficulty may have brought some Christian scholar,
proceeding from the heathen diptychs or double wax tablets, to
suggest or to prepare leaf -books, I am further ready to believe
that two old manuscripts of the Bible, which we have now in
Europe, were among the earlier leaf-books.

Sides of Parchment.

Now, however, that we are coming to the leaf-books we must
mention another thing. Parchment has two sides. It is skin.
It has a side that was on the outside of the animal and was
covered with goat's hair or sheep's wool. And it has a side that
was against the flesh, that covered the ribs. We may call them
the hair side and the flesh side. The hair side is in comparison
with the flesh side of a darker shade, and when the parchment
grows old the difference in colour is more clearly visible,
particularly in parchment made out of sheepskin. In the second
place, the hair side is rougher than the flesh side. This difference
is often very slight, but it is usually there. Once I was speaking
with a parchment maker, and I asked him which side of a certain
piece of fine parchment was which. He said he could not tell with-
out a careful examination. I took hold of it and said to him what
I thought the sides were, and it proved when he examined it that
I had felt right. The parchment maker had never tried to tell
the sides by feeling. That was not of the least use in his
business. But I had for years been feeling parchment leaves
just for this purpose. I do not doubt that some parchments
would be too fine to be thus distinguished by feeling, but I am
not sure. I question whether I could feel the difference between
the sides in the great Vatican manuscript j I cannot remember
about it as to this point. In the third place, the hair side is not

324 THE TEXT

only darker and rougher, but it is also more thirsty than the flesh
side, and it drinks up the ink much more eagerly and drinks it
in more thoroughly. The result is that if a manuscript has
grown old and the leaves have been much rubbed against each
other or rubbed by men's hands, the writing on the flesh side
may in the places that have been most rubbed vanish away
completely so that no vestige of the letters can be seen. On the
hair side, on the contrary, the ink sinks in so deep into the pores
of the skin that it is often no easy matter for a scribe to erase a
word on it with his knife.

The reason we have to speak of the sides of the parchment is
this : the quires are made according to a certain law. Even if it be
not important, I like to tell about this law because I discovered
it. A quire in a Greek manuscript of respectable family consists,
like a quire in an ordinary modern octavo printed book, of four
double leaves or eight single leaves. It is called a four-er, and
the name usual is a quaternion ; but those ten Latin letters say
no more than the six Saxon letters : fourer, only you must know
that the latter word comes from four or else you will not pro-
nounce it right. And these eight leaves must begin with a flesh
side and end with a flesh side, and there must be two flesh sides
in the middle of the quire, and every two pages that open out
together must both be flesh sides or both be hair sides. If a
man does not know the law, he is likely to make a poor manu-
script. But infringements of the rule that the sides, the pages,
that come together must be both alike are rare. We have at
Leipzig a small manuscript made without regard to this law, and
it looks ugly, ill-bred, and generally disreputable. If a roll be
made of parchment, the flesh side must be the inside of the roll,
the side that receives the writing. For it is the most beautiful
side, makes the best appearance, even if it does not retain the ink
so well.

It is further to be remarked that if a Greek manuscript does
not observe the above law as to the number of leaves in the
quire, if instead of being a fourer it be a fiver, a quinio (not, as
the books often write, a quinternio), made of five double leaves
and therefore having twenty pages, or have any other number
of leaves regularly in the quires, then it is not of pure Greek
origin. This conclusion is especially justified if the manuscript
be well gotten up, like that great Vatican manuscript which was

PARCHMENT 325

mentioned a moment ago, and which shows others signs of a non-
Grecian descent. Indeed we can take up that very point pre-
cisely here. That beautiful manuscript has very old leaf-
numbers. That is not Greek. Greek manuscripts do not
number their leaves. A Greek manuscript numbers only its
quires. If one happens to find numbers for the leaves in a
Greek manuscript, that is to say numbers that belong to ancient
times, that have not been put in in the West and in the fifteenth
to the twentieth century, he may be sure that a stranger has
written them in.

Parchment, to go back to the material written on, is of different
thicknesses, just as paper is. But it is not possible, as I used to
think it was, for the parchment makers to pare down or grind off
or do anything else to make the parchment thinner. A certain
skin, every skin, has its body of parchment, if the expression is
intelligible. The sharp scrapers of the workmen go just so far
and not farther. If they go beyond the proper point the skin is
spoiled. Therefore a fine thin parchment can only be made
from a thin skin, and that thin skin can only be a young skin.
To go at once to the greatest extreme known to me, there is in
the City Library at Leipzig a manuscript of the Latin Bible
written upon parchment made from the skin of unborn lambs.
It is exquisite parchment, and thinner than most thin papers are,
I should think. On the other hand, we sometimes see parchment
that is very thick and stiff, almost like so much pasteboard.

Parchment was really necessary for the leaf-books as contrasted
with papyrus or with leather. If a leaf-book were made out of
leather, the leaves would be likely to curl over at the top when
the book was opened upon the reading-desk. The parchment
leaves are usually more stiff and lie or stand well. Papyrus
would have given no trouble in this respect, for it was stiff enough.
But it is at once clear that papyrus with those little fibres so
easily broken would not be fitted to stand the opening and
shutting and the turning over of the leaves, but must if much
used soon go to pieces. Parchment was, on the contrary, very
durable, and could be bent and used at will. Reasonable use of
a parchment book has no appreciable effect upon its condition
during long years. The defects in parchment manuscripts are
sometimes due to rough usage on the part of those who read
them, but they are usually due to outrageous treatment on the

326 THE TEXT

part of ignorant people who have thrown them about and trodden
on them and torn them. Good parchment was. I think, dearer
than papyrus, but it was much more beautiful and indefinitely
more durable, and when the rolls were exchanged for leaf-books
the day of papyrus for literature began to wane.

Constahtine's Manuscripts.

We now take our stand in the fourth century", and Christianity
had up to the fourth century been growing apace in spite of all
efforts to repress it. At last an emperor determined to be a
Christian. There are people who think that this emperor,
Constantine, took up Christianity rather as a matter of business
than as a matter of religion, that it was State policy and not
devotional feeling that guided his steps. Be that as it may, it
is not easy for us after nearly sixteen centuries to go back to
the city which he renamed after himself as Constantine"s City,
Constantinople, and try his heart and reins : and he did his
royal duty towards the Bible at least in one case. It was in the
year 331. Eusebius, the bishop of Csesarea in Palestine, was a
very learned man, a great book man, and an active prelate. He
wrote a life of Constantine in which he displayed no little skill
as a flatterer. In that year. 331, as Eusebius tells us in this life,
Constantine conceived the idea of making a great present to the
chief churches near him. He wrote to Eusebius about it for
Eusebius was not only very learned, but he was also the bishop
of the city with the most celebrated Christian library. I like to
think that that library contained many of Origen's own personal
books, for he lived and taught there for years. Constantine
knew then that first-class biblical manuscripts were there, and
first-class scribes to copy new ones. He told Eusebius to have
fifty fine copies of the Bible made, and to send them to him at
Constantinople. He promised even to reward handsomely the
deacon whom he asked Eusebius to send to Constantinople as
a guard for the costly manuscripts on the long journey. It would
be very nice if we could find some of those manuscripts.

Unfortunately Eusebius knew nothing of the burning wishes
of textual critics in the twentieth century, and did not describe
these manuscripts in detail. He told just one thing about them,

PARCHMENT 327

and we, alas ! do not know what his words mean. We can only
guess at their meaning. He says that he wrote them by threes
and fours, or " three-wise and four-wise." Eusebius knew what
he meant. Would that we did. This must have been a
technical expression in making books. Some scholars have
thought that Eusebius referred to the quires, and that he said
that he had written them on quires of three double leaves and
on quires of four double leaves, on ternions and quaternions.
This suggestion does not commend itself to me, for two reasons.
In the first place, so far as we know, no Greek manuscript was
ever made up in quires of three double leaves. We have seen
that the rule was four double leaves. And, in the second place,
the quires and the number of leaves in the quires are things
that do not strike the eye when a man looks at a book. If a
man to-day takes up an uncut printed book he may see the
quires in a certain individuality, but even thus the number of
leaves in a quire does not impress itself upon him unless he directs
his mind to that point. But the Greek manuscripts were never
uncut, and the moment a volume was bound, the man who
opened it at hazard would in no way be forced to see how
many leaves there happened to be in the quires. My theory
about it is that " by threes and fours " attaches to the number
of columns on a page. If a man opens a book he cannot help
seeing instantly whether the page before his eyes has one or two
or three or four columns. I think that Eusebius meant to say
or did say by those mystic words that he had the fifty Bibles
written in pages of three columns and in pages of four
columns.

It is a practical reason that leads me to this theory. If I am
not mistaken, we have one or two of these manuscripts to-day in
our hands, or, to put it still more tentatively, we have one or two
manuscripts that may as well as not have been among these
fifty that were sent to Constantine from Caesarea by Eusebius.
We have two manuscripts of the Bible written in large part, one
in four, the other in three columns. The poetical books of the
Old Testament do not count, because they had to be written in
two columns on account of their verses. And these two
manuscripts are palaeographically and theologically apparently
to be referred to the fourth century. Perhaps they made that
journey with the deacon from Caesarea to Constantinople. No

328 THE TEXT

record is known of the churches to which Constantine gave the
new Bibles. Those in Constantinople itself probably got the
greater part of them, since Constantine mentioned them in
writing to Eusebius. Yet he may have sent one or another to
a more distant church of importance in order to honour the
bishop who presided over it.

329

III.

LARGE LETTER GREEK MANUSCRIPTS.

The Codex Sinaiticus.

The manuscript written in four columns is the Codex Sinaiticus,
known by the Hebrew letter Aleph X, and we now turn our
attention to it. In the year 1844, Constantine Tischendorf,
a privatdozent then in the university at Leipzig, visited the
monastery of St. Catharine at Mount Sinai. While there he
found in a waste basket forty-three leaves of an old manu-
script, and the monks let him have them. He also saw
some more leaves that they refused to give him, but he copied
one of them off. People have sometimes derided the story of